On October 24th, 2011, Jeffrey Epstein was emailing back and forth with Boris Nikolic, a biotech venture capitalist who would later be named as a backup executor of Epstein’s will. The two appeared to be discussing a meeting Nikolic had helped arrange between Epstein and “moot,” the screen name for Christopher Poole, who created the platform 4chan in 2003. Nikolic asked Epstein if he liked moot, and Epstein wrote back that he liked him a lot, thought he was very bright, and had driven him home.
All of these emails were published for the first time alongside 3.5 million other documents in the latest (delayed) release of Epstein files by the Department of Justice. Before then, it was not publicly known that Epstein had any encounters with Poole.
The day before Epstein discussed meeting him — possibly the day they had met — Poole created a new discussion board on the website called /pol/, short for “politically incorrect.” According to 4chan researcher Sal Hagen, Poole had previously shut down the board /new/ after bemoaning that it had been overrun by white supremacists. His creation of /pol/ may have been intended to contain 4chan’s most bigoted population, but instead, /pol/ came to define the platform.
The /pol/ board would go on to become one of the most infamous alt-right internet spaces ever, launching the QAnon conspiracy theory, developing modern white supremacist symbols like Pepe the Frog, and directly inspiring at least one mass shooter. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, /pol/ members celebrated it as a resounding victory for them.
Some posters think Epstein influenced Poole to create /pol/ during their 2011 meeting, although there’s no real evidence for that theory. The timing may just be surreal. But even if it’s coincidental, Epstein’s relationship to the center of the burgeoning, internet-driven “alt-right” movement wasn’t.
Epstein’s relationship with Poole seemed to flame out after that initial encounter, with failed attempts to set up further meetings documented in other emails. But years later, after 4chan helped propel Trump to victory, Epstein developed a much closer relationship with Steve Bannon, the chief strategist behind Trump’s 2016 campaign. As the former head of conservative outlet Breitbart News, which he called “the platform for the alt-right,” Bannon understood how to weaponize 4chan culture to get Trump in office. Later, after he was ousted from Trump’s administration in 2017, Bannon hosted QAnon-affiliated activists on his podcast. Bannon was so closely associated with the movement behind that conspiracy that Ron Watkins, who is believed to be the man behind “Q,” attempted to pin the whole thing on Bannon.
After parting ways with Trump, Bannon also started meeting with Epstein. The two took a mirror selfie together. Bannon was pictured in deep conversation with Epstein on opposite sides of a desk. There were even text messages with Bannon leading up to the day Epstein was arrested in 2019. A meeting with Bannon was one of the last plans Epstein canceled before being detained.
As with Poole, the nature of Epstein’s relationship with Bannon has only become known because of what’s in the Epstein files. As per the newly released documents, the two chatted about supporting far-right politicians in Europe, and Epstein also gave Bannon advice about how to frame Trump’s issues on the world stage. The journalist and bestselling author on Trump, Michael Wolff, had a close relationship with Epstein and sent him an excerpt from a 2019 draft for what would become Siege: Trump Under Fire, Wolff’s second book about Trump. The excerpt featured Bannon saying Epstein was “the one person I was truly afraid of coming forward during the campaign.” Epstein responded, “not surprising.”
There are also more than 1,000 Epstein files that mention Elon Musk, who, since 2022, has arguably turned Twitter into a larger, more mainstream version of 4chan. Musk has vociferously denied wrongdoing with regard to his communications and relationship with Epstein, and has instead pointed his finger at Bannon and other men named in the files. Many prominent men in tech, including Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, were repeatedly mentioned within the latest documents. Musk and Thiel are both tech billionaires and proponents of far-right politics. In one 2016 email exchange, Epstein told Thiel that Brexit, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, was “just the beginning.” When Thiel asked what Epstein meant, he responded, in part, “return to tribalism,” “counter to globalization,” and “amazing new alliances.”
“It’s like pseudoscience to try to justify a white supremacist worldview.”
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