Bill Gates, Elon Musk, the Rothschilds and Kevin Rudd – a snapshot of prominent figures mentioned in the Epstein files
A joint Deepcut/The Shot analysis compiles a list of damning emails from the latest Epstein file dump
***Warning: This article contains graphic references to sexual abuse, cannibalism and torture. Reader discretion is advised.***
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Three million files related to the activities of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released by the Trump administration last week.
A joint effort by Deepcut News and The Shot has read thousands of files. While only scratching the surface, the limited investigation was enough to reveal a sickening world of child sex abuse and torture dispersed with the mechanics of global affairs.
Epstein was the central figure in a vast network of oligarchs, politicians, CEOs and celebrities who shared a few key characteristics: hyperwealth and depraved proclivities.
From draft emails rehearsing blackmail attempts that Epstein would send to himself, tailored to powerful individuals like Bill Gates, to allegations of cannibalism and torture, Epstein’s operation was clearly not solely about satisfying the sick urges of the rich, detached and bored: it was about having leverage over the powerful, in service of protecting Israel’s interests.
The previous tranche of Epstein files already disclosed the sex offender’s close links to Israel, primarily through his close relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Below we share a tiny sample of Epstein’s emails that help illustrate the extent of whom and what he knew, and the manner in which he leveraged these connections to power.
Kevin Rudd
The former prime minister is, thus far, the most prominent Australian figure mentioned on numerous occasions in the Epstein files.
Rudd has denied meeting Epstein and said in a statement:
“Most references to Dr Rudd in these latest documents mention him in passing. Others indicate there were attempts by mutual acquaintances of Jeffrey Epstein to introduce him to Dr Rudd. No introduction ever took place, and there is no evidence of any direct contact between Jeffrey Epstein and either Dr Rudd or his office.”
The statement also said that “Dr Rudd’s legal team is prepared to launch legal action against any defamatory statements asserting any kind of personal relationship between Dr Rudd and Epstein.”
As a matter of public interest, we are sharing below several mentions in the Epstein files we discovered of Rudd. Neither Deepcut nor The Shot suggest that Rudd committed any wrongdoing, and we have included the responses from Rudd’s office.
June 8, 2014: An email of Epstein’s schedule for the day was sent from Lesley Groff – Epstein’s assistant – listing Rudd at 4.30pm. Two days prior, Epstein emailed his assistant requesting non-vegetarian food as “kevin rudd is also coming”. Rudd denied the meeting took place.
Response from Rudd’s office: “Our office has no records of this meeting, and the published documents gave no indication about who was involved in organising it. In any case, they were unsuccessful in arranging the introduction.”
September 18, 2015: A text message from “Camilla” to Epstein notes that the Mongolian president was expected to arrive “at 8pm” and states that Rudd “asked if he can bring his wife and son”, to which Epstein replied, “Ok.”
Response from Rudd’s office: “Dr Rudd had been invited by the International Peace Institute – a think tank whose honorary chair was the UN Secretary-General – and had asked the IPI whether he could bring his wife and son. Dr Rudd’s diary records an invitation from the IPI to ‘Dinner with the Mongolian President,’ but the invitation was ultimately declined. We do not know whether or not the dinner went ahead without him.”
February 5, 2016: An email purportedly from Thorbjørn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister and secretary general of the Council of Europe, to Epstein refers to Rudd as “a friend of both of us” who had just left Jagland’s house.
Response from Dr Rudd’s office: “Dr Rudd’s diary confirms that he had dinner at Mr Jagland’s home in Strasbourg that evening. The Secretary-General’s reference to Dr Rudd being ‘a friend of both of us’ appears based solely on their shared connection to the IPI.”
Peter Thiel and making a Middle East mess
Thiel is an extremist billionaire who co-founded PayPal as well as the notorious AI firm Palantir Technologies. Thiel also helped fund the rise of Donald Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, and famously paused when asked in an interview whether he thought the human race should endure.
In an exchange with Epstein in June 2014, the pair discussed the “mess” in the Middle East, with Epstein remarking, “we would have to admit a strategy brilliantly executed”. At the time, the region was in chaos after Arab Spring protests in 2011 devolved into regional bloodshed.
Thiel replies, “The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do.”
US support for al-Qaeda
In a September 2016 exchange between Epstein and billionaire Tom Pritzker, Epstein speaks of the incoherence of US policy in Syria.
Epstein writes that the US “does not act with one voice”, suggesting that the White House, Pentagon, CIA and state department were pursuing different approaches in Syria. Importantly, he noted “support for nusra”, which refers to Jabhat al-Nusra – the official al-Qaeda branch active in the Syrian civil war at the time. Jabhat al-Nusra would later rebrand as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham headed by Ahmad al-Sharaa – the current Syrian president.
Pritzker is an American billionaire and descendant of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Despite reported links to Epstein, he remains the executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation and chairman of the US think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Virginia Guiffre, a prominent accuser of Epstein who famously appeared in a photo with Prince Andrew, also said she was trafficked to have sex with Pritzker in a 2016 deposition. Pritzker denied the allegation. Guiffre died in April 2025, with her father rejecting widespread reports the cause of death was suicide.
A meeting with Netanyahu
In March 2011, Epstein received a forwarded email from Jes Staley, at the time an investment banker at JP Morgan who retained Epstein as a client. A 2022 report in the Wall Street Journal alleged Staley visited Epstein’s Little St. James island in 2009, stating that the pair had a “close bond”. Staley would go on to become the CEO of Barclays bank in the UK in 2015 before resigning in disgrace in 2021 due to his ties to Epstein.
The forwarded email, originally written by a JP Morgan managing director in Israel, says a meeting had been granted with Benjamin Netanyahu. Epstein responded to Staley’s forwarded email, “surprisee suprise” [sic]. It’s unclear if Epstein was included in the meeting, had assisted in arranging the meeting or was not involved at all.
Mossad, blackmail and Robert Maxwell
Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, had long been suspected of being a Mossad asset. An email from Jeffrey to an unknown recipient seems to confirm not only this, but that Robert had attempted to extort 400 million euros to “save [his] crumbling empire”.
The remarks in the email state that Robert had “free access” to Margaret Thatcher’s Downing St, Ronald Reagan’s White House, the Kremlin and the “corridors of power in Europe”.
Robert was born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch in then Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family and died in 1991. His body was recovered naked and floating in the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands, before being buried in Israel at a funeral attended by Israel’s political elite.
A Mark Iverson claimed in an August 2021 email to have met Ghislaine as a “bright, beautiful college girl” in 1982 – “roughly a decade before most people thought she was in the United States”. Iverson said he suspected “Robert, Ghislaine, and Jeffery (SIC) were all Mossad agents trying to blackmail leaders in the political and financial world”.
It is unclear who Iverson is and essential information has been redacted.
Fallout with Bill Gates
Bill Gates’ name is listed in the Epstein files 2,541 times, the most intriguing of which is a draft email from July 2013 that Epstein wrote to himself, in response to Gates’ attempt to sever their working relationship and “friendship developed over the last 6 years”.
It is, bluntly, a rehearsal for extortion. Epstein expresses indignity, hurt and vindictiveness towards Gates, and threatens to ruin his reputation unless he is paid US$30m to favourably wrap up a joint investment the two men shared.
Epstein mentions the sexually transmitted disease Gates allegedly acquired and threatens to leak emails Gates sent to Epstein seeking antibiotics and advice on how to “surreptitiously” slip them into Melinda Gates’ drinks. Epstein also mentions “descriptions of your penis”.
BIll Gates has denied any and all truth in the allegations. The email is below in its entirety.
Elon Musk wanting to party
The sieg-heiling owner of Twitter/X appears in the latest Epstein dump in a characteristically sad, pitiable fashion. There are a number of emails between redacted sources that appear to be planning notes for a Musk visit to Epstein’s island.
The most damning of the Musk emails do not prove that he attended Epstein’s depraved island “parties”. But they do show that he really, really wanted to. So much so that he was emailing Epstein in the early hours of Christmas Day 2012, wanting to know when the “wildest party” would be, and making clear that “a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for”.
Whether Musk attended or not, and whether Talulah was uncomfortable with the “ratio” on the island or not, the following year, in December 2013, Musk asked again for the best time to visit. A back and forth exchange between Epstein and Musk shows the two men collectively working out dates for the rendezvous, and Epstein assures Musk that there is “always space for you” on the island.
The Rothschilds
Members of the aristocratic Ashkenazi Jewish family were also heavily connected to Epstein. A search of the word “Rothschild” shows nearly 12,000 results in the Epstein files.
A fascinating discovery was a US$25m contract the Edmond de Rothschild Group (or Rothschild Group for short) paid to Epstein’s US Virgin Islands-based company, the Southern Trust Company, Inc, in 2015.
The US Virgin Islands is a known tax haven, with the European Union in 2018 blacklisting the territory as a “non-cooperative” jurisdiction for tax purposes.
The individual representing the Rothschild Group in the Epstein contract was Ariane de Rothschild, current group CEO and daughter-in-law to its late namesake, Edmond de Rothschild.
Edmond founded the Swiss financial institution in 1953 and invested significantly in Israel, including serving as president of The Israel General Bank.
Cannibalism, torture and presidential male rape
In the following email strand, two people working on the Epstein case, at least one of them an FBI agent, discuss key points made by a purported victim of Epstein. The statement describes an elite gathering on a yacht in 2000, where the victim, an underage male, alleges he was raped by Epstein, Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr.
The victim also describes ritual cannibalistic acts aboard the yacht, saying he “witnessed babies being dismembered, their intestines removed, and individuals eating the feces from these intestines”.
Allegations shared with law enforcement are not necessarily representations of fact, and, as seen in the above email, the investigator did not recommend expending “additional investigative resources” concerning the claim.
Nevertheless, suspicions of torture taking place within Epstein’s circle should not be dismissed, given the below emails sent by the convicted sex offender.
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This read was challenging. Deepcut/The Shot, thank for the pre-read warning and for synthesising these documents for us. Too many powerful people believing they are above the law - and it seems they are.
Jeez. This is far more decrepit than I could have ever possibly imagined. It's a strange mix of the truly awful and truly base.