Financier Jeffrey Epstein has often been portrayed as a powerful figure operating his influence on wealth, politics, and technology. But according to internet culture reporter Ryan Broderick, the reality was far less sophisticated.
Despite appearing connected to some of the internet’s most consequential developments, Epstein himself could barely use a computer. Broderick, author of the Garbage Day newsletter and host of the Panic World podcast, has spent considerable time digging through the recently released Epstein files.
Speaking on Taylor Lorenz’s Power User podcast, he described a detail that stood out among the documents: a video showing Epstein learning basic computer functions.
“There’s a video in the files of him like learning how to right-click and save a file,” Broderick said. “Like he’s not a tech literate person. He’s not a literate person. He can’t really type or write.”
According to the emails and documents Broderick reviewed, the reality looked very different. On Epstein’s intelligence more broadly, Broderick was blunt.
He stated: “Epstein is a dumb guy. Like he’s really dumb, but he is like charismatic and he knows people and he’s got this entire sort of side service, this sort of like underground service he can offer you.”
Despite that lack of technical skill, Epstein repeatedly found himself around influential conversations about the internet and emerging technologies.
One of the strangest examples involves the creation of /pol/, the politically incorrect board on 4chan that later became a hub for far-right online communities. The day before Christopher “moot” Poole created the board, he had met with Epstein.
Poole has since publicly stated that Epstein had no connection to his decision to launch the board. Still, the timing raises eyebrows.
“It’s a really weird thing to have happened,” Broderick said.
Broderick believes Epstein’s interest in communities like 4chan had less to do with ideology and more with recruiting technical talent. In internal communications, Poole was referred to as a “hacker,” reflecting a fascination among wealthy figures at the time with hackers and what they might be able to accomplish.
The only confirmed evidence that Epstein continued to follow the site came years later. In a 2017 email, he sent his girlfriend a link to a 4chan thread discussing the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s.
His deeper interest, however, appeared to be in alternative financial systems and unregulated online money transfers.
Emails show Epstein discussing in-game currencies in World of Warcraft, communicating with Brock Pierce’s company Internet Gaming Entertainment, and corresponding with Activision CEO Bobby Kotick about loot boxes. Broderick views these conversations as early examples of powerful figures exploring ways to move money outside the reach of regulators.
“It is a bunch of men trying to figure out how to use the internet to exchange money without being caught by regulators or various governments,” Broderick said.
That interest in financial anonymity eventually intersected with politics. After The New York Times published its Harvey Weinstein investigation in 2017, Epstein began communicating with former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
According to Broderick, texts and emails between the two outlined a plan to build a cryptocurrency-funded political network across the United States and Europe. The idea was to help elect politicians who would resist regulation of cryptocurrency.
The objective, Broderick argues, went beyond financial freedom.
“They are trying to create a cryptocurrency-funded far-right movement to shut down Me Too,” he said. “That is actually the entire thing.”
The politicians mentioned in their communications reportedly included Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, Italian politician Matteo Salvini, France’s Marine Le Pen, Germany’s AfD party, and British political figure Nigel Farage. Bannon was in contact with many of them while also maintaining communication with Epstein.
The strategy was simple: use cryptocurrency to create an unregulated financial pipeline, help elect sympathetic political figures, and maintain a system that could fund legal pressure or political opposition against journalists and accusers reporting sexual abuse.
Yet the man involved in these conversations appeared to understand very little about the technology itself. Broderick described reading through Epstein’s emails with powerful business and political figures and being struck by how poorly written they often were.
“These are like semicoherent, barely literate messages to each other,” he said, noting how many of the conversations involved assistants relaying messages and introductions.
For Broderick, Epstein’s role in tech circles was less about technical knowledge and more about access and influence.
“He was clearly offering a service to other rich people of like advising them,” Broderick explained. “That’s how I think you should think about these things.”
Even as Epstein explored Bitcoin, in-game currencies, and online reputation management, Broderick believes his true interest was anonymity and control. At various points, Epstein reportedly paid people to clean up his Google search results and even had associates attempt to manipulate Wikipedia pages about him.
The portrait that emerges from the files is not one of a technological mastermind but of a well-connected operator who understood just enough about the internet to recognize its potential advantages.
“The major thing is like in the 2000s, he’s very interested in figuring out how technology can help facilitate his crim es and also how he can use the internet to hide them,” Broderick said.
The actual technical work, however, was always someone else’s job.
