After years on insinuations, Elon Musk – a former Donald Trump insider – has sensationally claimed the US President Trump is implicated in the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X as their bitter fied played out online Friday.

“[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” he said.

The Trump administration promised to release files on Epstein, who was convicted of operating one of the most prolific sex trafficking operations in US history, but the FBI and Department of Justice have so far stalled after posting already-declassified documents in the case.

Before he was elected to a second term as president in November, Trump said he would have “no problem” releasing files relating to Epstein.

At the time he suggested he was not concerned by what they may contain.

There is no evidence that Trump engaged in criminal activity with Epstein and Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Here’s what we know about Trump’s relationship with Epstein.

How did Trump know Epstein?

The friendship between Trump and Epstein’s dates back to the late 1980s when they were both members of New York’s high society and vacationed at their homes in Palm Beach, Florida.

It is known that the pair partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and went to a Victoria’s Secret Angels show together.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002.

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” he added.

Trump and wife Melania were both friendly with Epstein. Photo: Getty

Epstein’s infamous leaked address books contained both Trump and wife Melania’s phone numbers.

Trump’s name also appeared at least seven times on the passenger logs of Epstein’s private jet, known as the ‘Lolita Express’.

What did Epstein think of Trump?

Michael Wolff, the journalist and Trump biographer, last year released tapes to the Daily Beast of some of many hours of interviews he conducted with Epstein before he took his own life in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019.

In the 2018 interviews, conducted for Wolff’s Trump biography Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Epstein boasts about his closeness to Trump and Melania, claiming, “the first time he slept with her was on my plane”.

Wolff also claimed that Trump and Epstein had a competition over who would be the first to sleep with the late Princess Diana.

Epstein is heard on the tapes calling Trump his “best friend for ten years”.

But he goes on to call Trump a “horrible human being.”

“He does nasty things to his best friends, best friends’ wives, anyone who he first tries to gain their trust and uses it to do bad things to them,” Epstein can be heard saying.

How did the friendship end?

A significant falling out is thought to have occurred in 2004 over a real estate deal in the Palm Beach Maison de L’Amitié estate.

The following year the FBI began investigating Epstein for child sex trafficking.

Trump is said to have then worked against Epstein, including offering legal help to some of his victims.

After Epstein’s arrest, Trump distanced himself from the sex offender.

“I was not a fan,” he told reporters in 2019, adding. “I had a falling out with him a long time ago.”

In various lawsuits and testimonies brought by Epstein accusers over the years, Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Publicly, Trump has claimed he was “not a fan” of Epstein since they parted ways.

What do Epstein’s victims say?

Former model Stacey Williams last year alleged that Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower in New York after being brought there by Epstein as part of a “twisted game” between the two men.

The Trump campaign denied the claims.

Trump’s name came up at Epstien confederate Ghislane Maxwell’s 2021 trial, when a woman testifying under the pseudonym ‘Jan’e said Epstein took her to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort when she was 14.

Roberts Giuffre worked at Mar a Lago when she was recruited for Epstein. Photo: AAP

She did not allege any improper behaviour from Trump.

In 2000 the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, said she was recruited into Epstein’s orbit while working at Mar-a-Lago.

Giuffre was working as a locker room attendant when she was recruited by Maxwell, who trafficked her to the financier and his high-profile circle of friends.

Roberts Giuffre took her own life this year.