Some new info here....including Tesla. (Haven't heard Tesla in relation to JE until now.)
The Day Jeffrey Epstein Told Me He Had Dirt on Powerful People
Just thinking aloud here, not fully-formed thoughts at this point, but...
The reporter of this article writes that Epstein told him that people feel safe revealing information to him. I understand that charismatic people have that ability - to make people feel comfortable in their conversations.
But, I'm currently reading a book about crime in London in the early 1700s - and some of the tactics of the "Fagin type" characters (remember Fagin from "Olivier"? He ran the gang of thieves, including children.). One such guy I'm reading about, named Jonathan Wild if anyone is interested, collected information - and if you didn't share information, he would go after you. Whether he blackmailed, turned you in to authorities, bribed others to turn against you, whatever - he was the clearinghouse of both information and stolen goods. People HAD to confide in him or be ruined. The man's network was vast and complicated. Sounds familiar.
And that's what might have been happening with JE - it wasn't so much that people enjoyed sharing info with him, but they "had" to....but what JE held over their heads, IDK. Sometimes their sex activities, but probably more than that.
He put people in position to "owe" him, imo.
Again, this is not a fully-formed thought. I know there are holes and probably just shows that criminal minds - especially the criminals who fancy their brains - follow a pattern in their operations, even over the centuries.
jmo