Convicted Sex Offender Fed Anil Ambani Tips on U.S. Foreign Policy, Appointments

Jeffrey Epstein fed Indian tycoon Anil Ambani a steady stream of tips on U.S. ambassador candidates and foreign policy during a two-year backchannel stretching from 2017 to 2019. Documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files reveal how a convicted sex offender manufactured the appearance of indispensable access to a newly installed Trump administration, drawing in a billionaire with real financial stakes in the Washington-New Delhi relationship.

The conduit was Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of Dubai Ports World, one of the world's largest shipping companies. Bin Sulayem emailed Ambani's contact details to Epstein on February 22, 2017. The next day, Ambani sent his first message: "Thanks. Enjoyed mtng u. Will learn a lot from u."

Within weeks, Ambani was consulting Epstein on who should become the next U.S. ambassador to India. On March 9, 2017, he wrote that "Amb to India is key" and pushed back against strategic expert Ashley Tellis, whom the Washington Post had reported in January 2017 as a Trump frontrunner. Ambani lobbied instead for retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus, arguing he was a strong person who could "deal wth neighbores pak afghanistan etc." Epstein replied that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was "nominally in charge of search" and that Trump had liked Petraeus but cautioned there were complications. Neither man got the job. Kenneth Juster was appointed U.S. ambassador to India in November 2017, a name that never appeared in the exchange.

Seven days later, Ambani escalated. He told Epstein he had been in Delhi and that "Leadership wld like ur help for me to meet jared and bannon asap," referring to Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon ahead of a planned Modi visit to Washington in May. Epstein's reply sounded like insider knowledge while committing to nothing: "steve and jared are meeting 15 people a day. mostly meet and greet with little follow up.. state dept is way understaffed." He steered Ambani toward Tom Barrack, chair of Trump's inaugural committee but holding no administration post, and then pitched the meeting to Barrack directly: "Anil ambani, India, is coming to New York first week of April, I think you would enjoy."

The tips were not obviously wrong. Epstein's read on Kushner's accessibility proved accurate. His message that "India Israel Key - not for email" came weeks before India-Israel relations reached what observers described as an unprecedented high point in bilateral ties. But proximity to the right answer is not proximity to power. Investigators found no evidence Epstein had any substantive relationship with the Trump administration.

What he had instead was architecture. Bin Sulayem, heading one of the world's largest port operators, supplied the introduction. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, whose contact details Epstein passed to Ambani the same week they first connected, supplied credibility. Epstein's offer to sponsor a UN event featuring "the top 75 ambassadors and foreign ministers" supplied spectacle. Each layer made the next easier to believe.

Ambani had his own reasons to trust the framework. His Reliance Defence had entered a major joint venture with Rafael, Israel's state-owned defence manufacturer, giving him a direct financial stake in how Washington shaped its India-Israel posture. The information Epstein was selling matched precisely what Ambani needed to hear.

By 2019, facing an insolvency ruling, Ambani was asking Epstein for advice on raising a $750 million personal loan. The relationship had shifted from backchannel diplomacy to personal finance, but the underlying dynamic had not changed: a man with a conviction record continued to project access he could not reliably deliver, and a powerful overseas client kept paying for the signal.