What to Know
On several occasions, people have assumed that President Donald Trump’s antics were meant to distract the general public from the Epstein files. And now that the president has instructed “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth to release government files related to aliens, Elon Musk’s estranged daughter, Vivian Wilson, has offered a theory. On social media, Wilson wrote, “Not to put my tinfoil hat on, but I think this alien bull— is a distraction from the Epstein Files.”
Reacting to Wilson’s post, many people agreed that it does seem like a pretty convenient distraction. Of course, people have accused Trump of trying to distract people from Epstein many times at this point. And Seth Meyers actually shared a similar theory back in 2025, before Trump even announced that the government would be releasing these “alien files.”
Trump announced on February 19 that the “alien files” would be released due to “tremendous interest shown.”
Hmm. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote, “Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
On Monday, February 23, a reporter asked Hegseth for an update, and he said people are currently “working on it,” per Time. Hegseth was also asked if he believes in aliens, and he replied, “We’ll see. I get to do the review and find out along with you!”
Interestingly, Seth Meyers seemed to predict this back in 2025.
Trump’s interest in aliens might seem random to some, but in July 2025, Meyers joked that Trump would suddenly have to claim that aliens are real to distract from his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Now, the joke doesn’t seem so far-fetched. “They must be finding so many mentions of Trump, they’re going to have to change the name to the Trump files featuring Jeffrey Epstein,” Meyers said on Late Night with Seth Meyers at the time. “They’re so desperate to distract everyone, they’re claiming that Barack Obama is guilty of treason and leading a coup against Trump.”
Then, he continued, “I honestly think we’re just one Epstein story away from Trump just announcing that UFOs are real. By saying like, ‘Aliens exist. They live here on Earth. In fact, one of them used to be my lawyer.'” Oof. Given that Meyers was already anticipating this, it’s probably safe to say that Wilson is far from the only person who’s suspicious about Trump’s “alien files” order.
This is not the first time Wilson has spoken up about the Epstein files.
Her dad was mentioned in the documents. After email conversations between Musk and Epstein were released, Wilson took to social media to share what she knew. Based on what Wilson could recall from her childhood, she believed the emails were real. “There was this boat ride from St Vincent to St Barth’s I remember from when I was little,” she wrote in one post. “We used to visit around the holidays. I remember the sea being so dark at night.”
Some of her followers didn’t know exactly what she was referring to, though, so in her follow-up posts, she was more specific. “I’m just going to speak directly instead of being vague and cryptic,” she said. “I can confirm we were in St Barth’s at the time specified in the emails, and therefore I believe they are authentic.”
However, she didn’t know about the emails before they were released. “I knew nothing about the e-mails previously so I’m learning about everything at the same time as y’all,” she wrote. “If there’s any other information I learn that I can corroborate I will do so.”
