Epstein Arrest Leaves Top Technology Figures Racing to Distance Themselves

(Bloomberg) -- Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex-trafficking underage girls, had cultivated a public image over the decades as a benefactor of philanthropic and academic causes. His social circle famously included titans of Wall Street and power brokers in Washington, but his web of contacts also extended to the elite investors and entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. 

Now, the fallout from his July 6 arrest has sent many prominent figures in the technology industry scrambling to distance themselves from even the briefest of encounters with Epstein, many years ago.

Among those who have socialized with the financier—or appear in his infamous, although more-than-a-decade-old, “black book” of contacts—are Google co-founder Sergey Brin; Virgin Group creator and hyperloop investor Richard Branson; angel investor Jason Calacanis; Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates; LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk; Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold; and Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Epstein’s moneyed and connected network was partly chronicled in his address book, stolen by a staff member around 2005, and then published by gossip website Gawker in 2015. The book contains the names of hundreds of people. Some, like President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, are known to have socialized with Epstein. Others who are listed say they met him only briefly or not at all.

Epstein was known to play up his connections to powerful people. According to reports, he had claimed to be a tax consultant for Bill Gates. Gates’ name is not in the book, but according to a Gates representative, he met Epstein in New York at a meeting which other people attended. The Gates representative said the discussion focused on philanthropy, and that Epstein “never provided services of any type to Bill.” 

Calacanis, an early investor in Uber Technologies Inc., does appear in Epstein’s contact list and crossed paths with him in the 1990s when Calacanis was fundraising for his New York-focused tech publication, the Silicon Alley Reporter. He indicated that Epstein gave the impression of being a man with serious funds and insights into how to tap more.

“He gave me some advice at his townhouse once when I was raising money for the magazine,” Calacanis wrote in an email. “He thought I should think bigger.” Calacanis said the meeting was 30 minutes or less and can’t remember details, other than the opulence of the surroundings: “His living room was the size of a hotel lobby.”

Myhrvold, the founder of patent-licensing company Intellectual Ventures, knew Epstein from professional and social circles. “Back in the day, Epstein was a regular at TED conferences, and he was a large donor to basic scientific research, so while Nathan knew him and socialized with him, that’s exactly where their association ends,” a representative for Myhrvold said. “Nathan has no knowledge of or any involvement in the various crimes that Mr. Epstein is accused of committing; he was never a client of his money management business; and he’s never done business with him of any sort.”

An active host, Epstein arranged a dinner in the early 2000s at his Upper East Side townhouse for former President Clinton, a no-show, according to New York magazine. Those who did turn up included Google’s Brin and Trump. A spokeswoman for Brin declined to comment.

In 2008 Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor and served jail time, but despite his conviction he continued to make appearances in the company of technology elites. A few years ago, according to a Vanity Fair report, Reid Hoffman hosted a dinner in Palo Alto, California for neuroscientist Ed Boyden, with Epstein in attendance. 

“Reid has had only limited contact with Jeffrey Epstein, and it was always at the request of academics and in the context of academic fundraising,” a spokesman for  Hoffman said. 

Also at the dinner that night was Elon Musk, who introduced Epstein to Zuckerberg, according to Vanity Fair. Musk denied making the introduction. A Zuckerberg spokesman told the magazine that the Facebook chief and Epstein met only in passing and did not communicate again. Musk called Epstein “obviously a creep,” and said that while he and his ex-wife Talulah Riley visited Epstein’s Manhattan house several years ago “for about 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon” as research for a novel she was writing, they did not “see anything inappropriate at all, aside from weird art.”

Epstein also owns Little St. James, a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he has entertained luminaries over the years. Branson’s Necker Island is nearby, and the billionaire appears in Epstein’s black book. “We believe that Jeffrey Epstein once attended a charity tennis tournament on Necker some years ago, but there has been no contact since then,” a spokeswoman for Branson said. “There is no personal or business relationship between the two, nor has there ever been.”

Epstein still worked connections to the tech set as recently as last year. Hadi Partovi, the technology entrepreneur who founded the education nonprofit Code.org, said on Twitter that he wasn’t familiar with the financier when somebody introduced them last summer. Partovi spoke with Epstein over video chat about a donation for Code.org. But as he researched Epstein, Partovi saw the previous conviction and decided not to proceed, he said.

“Fundraising is hard, and saying ‘no’ is even harder,” Partovi wrote on Twitter. “I’m glad I made this call.” Partovi went on to describe the complex moral judgment that comes with evaluating relationships with donors. He said his decision might have been different if a potential benefactor had been accused but not convicted. "It's not my role," he said, "to play judge or jury."

--With assistance from Dina Bass and Gerrit De Vynck.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anne VanderMey at avandermey@bloomberg.net, Mark Milian

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