Opinion: How Jeffrey Epstein Conned His Way Into America’s Elite

Photo Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesJeffrey Epstein turned his interests, aspirations, and sense of himself into a lifestyle marketing scheme. He was an early “influencer,” in effect, although within the most exclusive of social networks. At 22, he submitted a fudged resume claiming he’d graduated from Cooper Union (he hadn’t) and got a job at the Dalton School. Through that connection he met and charmed a succession of influential men. The moral dubiousness of the social climber was undergoing a remarkable revision just as Epstein came into his own; it was a new world and a new word: “Networking.” One facet that distinguished Epstein was that he did not submit to the lingering middle-class convention of a private domestic life, so he could devote his full attention to social and sexual advancement. But a simpler explanation for his success goes to his wealth-whisperer abilities. He had gained the world by stripping himself of anyone who was not useful to him, or him to them. He was a whisperer to the rich, and their own attraction to this peculiar host and his unusual clubhouse, was, in the end, simply that there was no place else like it. Click through and subscribe to Michael Wolff’s HOWL for more of his unparalleled insight into Epstein’s world, and the “Epstein Diaries” series in full.Read it at SubstackRead more at The Daily Beast.