About

The Ghislaine Maxwell and Elon Musk Photo is a photograph of Jeffrey Epstein's confidante Ghislaine Maxwell and the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk together at an Oscar's party in 2014. The picture became the subject of image macro memes in the early 2020s amid Jeffrey Epstein's Sex Trafficking Case and the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell to defame Musk, using it as alleged evidence of Musk's closeness to both Maxwell and Epstein. Replying with the image to Musk on Twitter became commonplace, as well as photoshopping it and replacing the characters within the template.

Origin

On March 2nd, 2014, Ghislaine Maxwell and Elon Musk both attended the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.^[1] A photograph was taken of the two of them standing next to each other that the event (shown below), captured by the photographer Kevin Mazur and accessible via Getty Images,^[2] among many other photographs taken at the event by Mazur and uploaded to Getty Images.^[3]

Spread

Starting in 2018, the image of Maxwell and Musk was used on Twitter^[4] within replies that didn't receive notable engagement. In 2020, when Maxwell was found hiding in New Hampshire, the image of Maxwell and Musk resurfaced en masse, sparked by a reply to a Musk tweet from Twitter^[5] user HandleOfRy on July 2nd, 2020, who wrote, "Your good friend Ghislaine Maxwell?" that earned over 980 likes in two years. Musk then posted a reply^[6] to HandleOfRy denying that he knew Maxwell by stating, "Don’t know Ghislaine at all. She photobombed me once at a Vanity Fair party several years ago. Real question is why VF invited her in the first place 🤔," earning roughly 5,700 likes in two years (thread shown below).

The New York Post then wrote an article^[7] about Musk's statement. Despite his denial of knowing Maxwell, the photograph still surfaced on Twitter in relation to Musk going into the early 2020s. The image surfaced most notably during Musk's Twitter bid in early 2022. For instance, on April 25th, 2022, Twitter^[8] user GravelInstitute posted a tweet that captioned the photo, "Post this image while you still can," earning roughly 58,600 likes in two months (shown below, left). Also on April 25th, Twitter^[9] user gabekelley posted a reply that included the image, earning over 300 likes in two months (shown below, right).

Crazy Frog Photoshop

On June 6th, 2022, the official Twitter page of Crazy Frog posted a reply^[10] to an Elon Musk tweet that photoshopped itself onto Ghislaine Maxwell's head, earning roughly 178,900 likes in two days (shown below). The reply inspired a viral discussion going into June 2022 about the viral marketing campaign and its obscure meaning.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References