Where Did Jeffrey Epstein Get His Money?

At the time of his death, financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was worth close to $600 million. He owned one of the biggest and most luxurious houses in New York City, two islands, a New Mexico ranch, and an apartment in Paris—not to mention the artwork, cars, private jet, and investment accounts.

So how exactly did the son of a homemaker and a gardener who was both a talented student (especially in math) and a college dropout wind up so rich?

It may be a facile and incomplete answer, but, as a Bear Stearns senior executive who helped give Epstein his first job on Wall Street told The New York Times in 2025, “He was just a hell of a salesman.” Epstein’s charm, charisma, or whatever else it is called comes up repeatedly when people talk about their interactions with him across five decades. Consider:

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• “If you had had him [as a teacher] then, you would’ve liked him, too,” Eve Scheuer Lubin told NPR in 2019. She was one of Epstein’s students at the Dalton School in the 1970s.
• “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” said Donald Trump for a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein.
• “Jeffrey’s limitless curiosity” was part of the reason “he quickly became a highly valued friend,” wrote linguist and intellectual Noam Chomsky, who became friends with Epstein in the 2010s.

If charm played a role in his accumulation of meteoric wealth, so too did relentless hard work, a ruthlessness when it came to rules and colleagues, and old-fashioned luck.

Early days on Wall Street

Even as Epstein was climbing the ladder at Bear Stearns and mingling with some of New York’s—and the world’s—wealthiest movers and shakers, there were warning signs of inappropriate behavior. According to The New York Times, on multiple occasions Bear Stearns questioned Epstein’s actions, including lying about his education on his résumé. When Michael Tennenbaum, the executive who had admired his salesmanship skills, questioned Epstein on why he lied about where he went to school, Epstein replied, “I knew nobody would give me a chance.” Tennenbaum told The New York Times that Epstein’s response disarmed him, and he decided to give Epstein a second chance. It was a decision that Tennenbaum came to regret, telling the newspaper in 2025:

I didn’t realize that I was creating one of the monsters of Wall Street.

Armed with that second chance, Epstein was riding high. He was 27 years old when Cosmopolitan magazine featured him as a “Bachelor of the Month” and Bear Stearns named him a limited partner. In 1981, however, the company conducted an internal investigation into a questionable personal loan Epstein made as well as tips he offered to a girlfriend about stock initial public offerings. At the same time the Securities and Exchange Commission questioned Epstein about insider trading, although no charges were filed. As a result of the investigation, Bear Stearns suspended and fined Epstein, who denied wrongdoing, said he was “deeply offended” by the investigation, and ultimately quit the firm.

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Friends in high places

Throughout the early 1980s Epstein seems to have been what some associates described as a “bounty hunter” who recovered stolen money for the ultra-wealthy. It proved to be a lucrative enterprise, and by 1984 Epstein had become a millionaire. He was now a client of Bear Stearns and not one of its brokers.

During this time Epstein’s charisma continued to charm New York circles. New York art collector Stuart Pivar told The New York Times that Epstein’s “magnetism,” particularly when turned on the “beautiful daughters of famous, powerful men,” was inescapable. In 1987 Epstein joined the board of the New York Academy of Art, founded by Pivar and Andy Warhol. He was moving among the very famous and about to land a client who would cement his personal fortune.

In 1988 Epstein founded J. Epstein & Company, a consulting firm that provided money-management services to individuals with a net worth of more than $1 billion. His major client for some 20 years was the billionaire retail magnate Leslie H. Wexner, who founded a conglomerate that at various times owned retail companies including Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Lane Bryant. Wexner also sold Epstein that luxurious Manhattan townhouse. Epstein had nearly limitless access to Wexner’s wealth, serving as his power of attorney, and was able to buy, sell, and borrow in Wexner’s name.

The relationship with Wexner was important in another key way: The fact that the billionaire had hired Epstein gave him an imprimatur of respectability. Epstein’s affiliation with Wexner opened doors for the relationships with the rich and powerful that Epstein would cultivate in the 1990s and early 21st century.

Ultimately, Wexner and Epstein had a falling out, and Wexner has said that he fired Epstein in 2007. After Epstein’s death, Wexner said, “Being taken advantage of by someone who was so sick, so cunning, so depraved is something that I am embarrassed that I was even close to, but that is in the past.”

Another key client of Epstein’s about this time was Leon Black, a billionaire cofounder of the equity firm Apollo Global Management. From 2012 to 2017 Epstein was paid more than $150 million by Black for tax- and estate-planning services, an enormous amount even for a billionaire to pay. Notably, the billionaire’s relationship with Epstein, which began in the 1990s, continued into the 2010s, after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Black, who was forced out of Apollo Global in 2021 because of his affiliation with Epstein, has called his relationship with Epstein a “horrible mistake.” Both Wexner and Black contributed to the now-infamous 50th birthday book that was given to Epstein.

Epstein also made money the old-fashioned way on Wall Street: He invested it. One of his biggest investments was with a venture capital firm started by PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and others. Epstein put $40 million in Valar Ventures in 2015 and 2016. Additionally, Epstein set up companies in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he was able to take advantage of lucrative tax breaks that may have saved him as much as $300 million across roughly 20 years, compared with what he would have paid in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

What he owned

In addition to investments and cash valued at more than $300 million, Epstein’s vast holdings included:

• Manhattan townhouse: Located on East 71st Street, the palatial seven-story, 21,000-square-foot (1,950-square-meter) townhouse was where Epstein entertained the rich and famous. It was also home to countless photos of Epstein with presidents, princes, and popes; a taxidermy tiger; and a first edition of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), a novel about a pedophile who abuses his stepdaughter.
• New Mexico ranch: Epstein owned more than 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) of land near Stanley, New Mexico, on which he built a 33,000-square-foot (3,000-square-meter) hacienda.
• Palm Beach estate: More than 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters) and located on the Intracoastal Waterway, the estate was in the same neighborhood as Mar-a-Lago. It was demolished after Epstein’s death.
• Paris apartment: Epstein was returning from his 7,500 ,000-square-foot (about 700 -square-meter) apartment when he was arrested in 2019. The walls were covered with photos of naked young women, according to court documents.
• Private islands: Epstein owned Little St. James Island and Great St. James Island off St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A number of Epstein’s accusers have said that their abuse occurred on Little St. James.
• Vehicles: Epstein owned some 20 cars, a number of motorcycles, a jet ski, and a private jet.

Learn more

An Epstein Files timeline

Ghislaine Maxwell, partner in crime

Who was Virginia Giuffre?

The Fallout: Firings, Resignations, Arrests