Bill Gates reacts to being named in Epstein files
Bill Gates has spoken out about his meeting with Jeffrey Epstein in Australia, saying he “regrets the time” he spent with the late disgraced financier.
The organization said in a statement that Bill Gates “accepted responsibility for his actions” during a town hall meeting with Gates Foundation officials regarding his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Gates answered questions on a variety of issues “including the release of the Epstein files,” according to the foundation, at its biannual meeting on February 24. “At City Hall, Bill spoke frankly, answered several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions,” the foundation said.
The statement was in response to a Wall Street Journal report that Gates had apologized to staff at the event venue over his relationship with Epstein.
Documents released by the Justice Department show that Gates and Epstein met repeatedly to discuss expanding the Microsoft founder’s philanthropy. The meeting took place after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison in 2009 on state charges of pimping a minor in Florida. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while in custody on federal charges of sex trafficking underage girls.
The Journal reported that Gates told his staff that spending time with Epstein and inviting Gates Foundation executives to meet with the sex offender was a big mistake. The report cited a recording of Gates’ comments at City Hall.
“I apologize to the others who were caught up in this situation because of the mistakes I made,” he said, according to the newspaper.
The paper also said Gates later admitted to two extramarital affairs with Russian women discovered by Epstein, but that none of them involved Epstein’s victims.
“I didn’t do anything illegal. I didn’t see anything illegal,” Gates told staff, according to the report.
The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Epstein documents released includes photos of the Microsoft founder posing with women whose faces have been suppressed. Mr. Gates said his relationship with Mr. Epstein was limited to philanthropy-related discussions and acknowledged that meeting with Mr. Epstein was a mistake.
The paper said Gates told foundation staff that the images were photos that Epstein had asked him to take with Epstein’s assistants after the meeting.
“To be clear, I have never spent any time with the victim or any of the women around her,” Gates added, according to the report.
Other documents show that Epstein tried to mediate a rift between Gates and his adviser Boris Nikolic in 2013. Epstein said in an email to himself that Gates and his inner circle had abused him despite their friendship, which was so close that Gates once asked for antibiotics to treat a sexually transmitted disease he contracted from a “Russian girl.”
His ex-wife Melinda French Gates announced their divorce in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. She left the Gates Foundation in 2024.
“Whatever questions remain about what I don’t know, I can’t even begin to know them all. Those questions are directed at those people, even my ex-husband. They are the ones who need to answer those things, not me,” French Gates said on the Feb. 5 episode of NPR’s “Wild Cards” podcast.
The Gates Foundation said in early February that it did not pay or employ Epstein in any way.
The billionaire canceled his plans to attend India’s AI Impact Summit hours before his scheduled February 19 keynote address.
The Gates Foundation, chaired by Mr. Gates and founded in 2000 by Mr. Gates and his then-wife, is one of the world’s largest funders of global health efforts.
Contributed by: Reuters
