Elon Musk explains how he ended up being photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell

It's an image which is posted by his opponents in the replies to almost every tweet he posts; a smiling, tuxedo-clad Elon Musk, with a grinning Ghislaine Maxwell to his right.

At the time it was taken, the snap was barely noteworthy, but in the wake of her sex trafficking conviction last year - some Twitter users have used it as a cudgel with which to attack the Tesla billionaire.

Now, he's snapped back, and explained the apparent circumstances of the image in a reply on Twitter on Monday.

It happened in a lengthy threaded conversation in which Elon Musk criticising NBC, before the conversation turned to Ms Maxwell.

Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December 2021 of helping recruit teenage girls for late financier Jeffrey Epstein to abuse and is set to receive decades behind bars when she is sentenced in June.

Musk asked: "Where is their 'client' list? Shouldn’t at least one of them go down!?"

Someone posted the infamous photo in response, and said: "Lets start with you".

That got a rise out of Musk, who said: "That’s a Vanity Fair party and she photobombed me in the background, but you know that already, don’t know [sic]?"

One fan said: "They know Elon, they just don’t care because that gets in the way of them smearing you, and your viewpoint, of a more open twitter."

All eyes are on Elon Musk right now after he agreed to buy Twitter for an eye-watering $44bn. And given all of the talk about free speech and the possible reintroduction of banned accounts - we rounded up a list of those who could end up reappearing.

If you decide you want to quit Twitter as a result, we've got you covered.

It doesn't look like he'll be sated by the Twitter purchase, either. He's even (jokingly) pondered buying Coca Cola - to put cocaine back into the recipe.

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