After I posted final week’s piece on how the New York Occasions broke the information of Epstein’s first conviction in probably the most disgustingly sympathetic means attainable, the title of the reporter Landon Thomas began popping up in my e mail and Bluesky feed, and it made me notice I had left a giant chunk of the story out of my account.
From Margaret Sullivan:
The most effective investigative reporters I do know, Pulitzer
Prize-winner James Risen, wrote to me about Landon Thomas, after the
Epstein emails raised critical questions on that reporter-source
relationship.“This raises so many questions,” Risen instructed
me. “Did this man inform his editors he might need stuff on Trump and
Epstein? What did they do about it? Did they ignore it?”We
could by no means know. The Occasions has mentioned little or no thus far, regardless of being
pressed. After the Intercept and different information organizations requested these
sorts of questions, their spokeswoman declined to get into it, solely
noting that Thomas left the Occasions years in the past. He departed in 2019 after
he revealed to his editors that he had solicited charitable donations
from Jeffrey Epstein; the Occasions put out an announcement again then saying his
solicitation was “a transparent violation” of their ethics coverage. However what
about all he knew about Epstein and about Epstein’s dealings with Donald
Trump? (“Would you prefer to see images of donald and ladies in bikinis
in my kitchen?” Epstein requested Thomas in a single just lately launched e mail.)
Given what we knew even again in 2019 in regards to the moral strains Thomas had been crossing for nearly twenty years (habits the NYT knew about earlier than they employed him), the concept soliciting donations was the one which went too far is a bit a lot. If I had been the cynical kind, I would assume that Thomas’s bosses had been relieved to have an excuse to do away with him simply as their earlier protection of Epstein was about to go underneath the microscope.
An e mail I obtained in response to final week’s put up identified that Thomas was additionally the writer of the infamous 2002 New York Journal puff piece, Jeffrey Epstein: Worldwide Moneyman of Thriller, an article that helped lay the muse for the extremely helpful fable of Epstein as a monetary genius and all-around good thinker.
He comes with money to burn, a fleet of airplanes, and a eager eye for the women — to say nothing of a relentless mind that challenges Nobel Prize–successful scientists throughout the nation — and for monetary markets world wide.
…
A former Dalton math instructor, he maintains a peripatetic salon of
good scientists but possesses no bachelor’s diploma. For greater than
ten years, he’s been linked to Manhattan-London society determine Ghislaine
Maxwell, daughter of the mysteriously deceased media titan Robert
Maxwell, but he lives the lifetime of a bachelor, logging 600 hours a yr
in his numerous planes as he scours the world for funding
alternatives. He owns what is alleged to be Manhattan’s largest non-public
home but runs his enterprise from a 100-acre non-public island in St.
Thomas.…
The wizard that meets the attention is spare and match; with a protracted jaw and a fastidiously coiffed head of silver hair, he seems like a taller, youthful Ralph Lauren. A raspy Brooklyn accent betrays his Coney Island origins. He spends an hour and fifteen minutes each day doing superior yoga along with his private teacher, who travels with him wherever he goes. He’s an enthusiastic member of the Trilateral Fee and the Council on International Relations.
…
On the time, choices buying and selling was an arcane and dimly understood subject, simply starting to take off. To commerce choices, one needed to worth them, and to worth them, one wanted to have the ability to grasp such abstruse mathematical confections because the Black-Scholes option-pricing mannequin. For Epstein, breaking down such fashions was pure sport, and inside just some years he had his personal steady of shoppers. “He was not your typical dealer saying ‘Purchase IBM’ or ‘Promote Xerox,’ ” says Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne. “Given his mathematical background, we put him in our special-products division, the place he would advise our wealthier shoppers on the tax implications of their portfolios. He would advocate sure tax-advantageous transactions. He’s a really good man and has turn into a vital consumer for the agency as nicely.”
…
However it’s his covey of scientists that conjures up Epstein’s true rapture. Epstein spends $20 million a yr on them — encouraging them to interact in no matter sort of cutting-edge analysis would possibly appeal to their fancy. They’re, after all, fairly lavish of their reward in return. Gerald Edelman received the Nobel Prize for physiology and medication in 1972 and now presides over the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla. “Jeff is extraordinary in his capacity to select up on quantitative relations,” says Edelman. “He got here to see us just lately. He’s involved with this primary query: Is it true that the mind is just not a pc? He’s very fast.”
Greater than another journalist, Thomas seems to be the important thing determine in permitting Epstein to domesticate his picture as enterprise genius/philanthropist/charming rouge. This function kicked into larger gear when the primary spherical of accusations got here to mild.
John Energy writing for Al Jazeera. (And sure, I do take this publication with a grain of salt on sure matters, however they don’t appear to have an agenda right here, and the small print are correct so far as I can inform.)
A New York Occasions reporter instructed Jeffrey Epstein that he may write an article that will outline the financier on his personal phrases as he confronted allegations of sexually abusing minors within the months main as much as his 2008 conviction, newly uncovered emails reveal.
After a unfavourable article about Epstein was printed in September 2007, then-New York Occasions journalist Landon Thomas Jr suggested Epstein to “get forward” of extra unhealthy publicity by doing an interview that will outline the story “in your phrases”.
“I Simply learn the Submit. Now the floodgates will open — you may count on Vainness Truthful and NYMag to pile on,” Thomas wrote to Epstein in an e mail dated September 20, 2007, referring to the magazines Vainness Truthful and New York Journal.
“My view is that the faster you get out forward of this and outline the story and who you might be in your phrases within the NYT, the higher it is going to be for you.”
Thomas, who left the Occasions in 2019, urged Epstein to rapidly do an interview to stop the “fashionable tabloid notion” about him from hardening, and expressed sympathy over his authorized troubles.
“I do know that is powerful and onerous for you, however bear in mind jail could [be] unhealthy, however it’s not ceaselessly,” Thomas wrote.
…
“Bear in mind how for some time my NY Magazine piece was the defining piece on you? That’s not the case in spite of everything this,” Thomas wrote to Epstein.
“However I feel if we did a chunk for the Occasions, with the paperwork and proof that you just point out, plus you talking for the file, we are able to once more have a narrative that turns into the final public phrase on Jeffrey Epstein.”
…
Amongst different revelations, these emails confirmed that Thomas let Epstein know that the late investigative journalist John Connolly had contacted him for info for Connolly’s 2016 ebook Filthy Wealthy: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.
“He appears very interested by your relationship with the information media,” Thomas wrote to Epstein in an e mail dated June 1, 2016. “I instructed him you had been a hell of a man :)”.
The Epstein–Thomas correspondence additionally hit one of many longest-running threads right here on the weblog: how Elon Musk turned the world’s richest man by way of inventory manipulation.
In 2018, Musk was sued by the SEC for a tweet stating that funding had been secured for probably taking Tesla non-public. The lawsuit characterised the tweet as false, deceptive, and damaging to traders, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded firms. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, with out admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations. In consequence, Musk and Tesla had been fined $20 million every, and Musk was compelled to step down for 3 years as Tesla chairman however was capable of stay as CEO.
About that:
Ed Niedermeyer, who wrote the definitive ebook on Tesla, takes it from right here.
lastly doing a bit of of my very own perusing of the Epstein Recordsdata, and I will be darned if Elon Musk’s private elite affect monger Juleana Glover wasn’t holding ol’ Jeff E apprised of all the most recent developments in Tesla’s inventory pump narrative
— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.on-line) February 4, 2026 at 10:58 AM
Glover to Epstein: “Tesla is changing into an Vitality firm”
www.justice.gov/epstein/file…Glover to Epstein: Mannequin 3 teardown exhibits 30% revenue margin (lmao)
www.justice.gov/epstein/file…
— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.on-line) February 4, 2026 at 11:01 AM
Welp, seems like Elon Musk and Jeffery Epstein had been undoubtedly in contact across the time of the “Funding Secured” fake Saudi Takeover
Why did Tesla all of the sudden want as a lot as $10b in money? Traders positive weren’t ever instructed! No person was, apart from Elon’s pedo buddy. Very cool!
— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.on-line) February 4, 2026 at 11:06 AM
We’ll get into the New York Occasions’ protection of that story one other day.
