Bill Gates has apologized to staff at his charitable foundation over his past friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, also admitting to two extramarital affairs, according to a report.
“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” the Microsoft founder told his employees in response to the Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein files, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing an audio recording of the latest biannual Gates Foundation town hall.
“To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,” Gates said while apologizing to foundation executives for introducing them into Epstein’s orbit.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein. I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” he said.
The tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist explained that he first met the pedophile in 2011, three years after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida, but that he had not looked into the financier’s background and was only dimly aware of an “18-month thing” that limited his travel.
He acknowledged that his then-wife, Melinda Gates, had expressed concern about Epstein in 2013, but that he had ignored her caution and continued to see him socially.
“Knowing what I know now makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it’s clear there was ongoing bad behavior,” Gates said, according to the WSJ.
Alluding to his ex-wife, he added: “To give her credit, she was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing.”
Gates continued to map out the course of their relationship, saying he had met with Epstein in 2011, taken trips on his private jet and spent time with him in Germany, France, New York, and Washington, but “never stayed overnight” at his properties or visited Little St James, his now-notorious private Caribbean island.
He said he did not see Epstein again after 2014, although there were “ancillary issues” that Epstein continued to email him about, but Gates said he chose not to respond to them.
Gates also said the women pictured with him in the files were Epstein’s assistants, whom the billionaire had asked to pose with him.
He said he had been drawn to Epstein initially because he “talked about the kind of intimate relationship he had with a lot of billionaires, particularly Wall Street billionaires,” whom, he said, could help Gates with his fundraising goals, which “made it easier for me to feel like this was a normalized situation.”
“It definitely is the opposite of the values of the foundation and the goals of the foundation,” Gates admitted. “And our work is very reputation-sensitive. I mean, people can choose to work with us or not work with us.”
A Gates Foundation spokesperson told The Independent: “This was a scheduled town hall with employees, which Bill does twice a year. In the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health.
“In the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.”
During the town hall, the billionaire also admitted to two affairs.
“I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities,” he said.
Melinda Gates spoke to NPR’s Wild Card podcast earlier this month about the release of the Epstein files and told host Rachel Martin that the scandal “brings back memories of some very, very painful times” in her marriage.
The couple, who have three children, divorced in 2021 after 27 years together.
Martin asked her guest about one of the emails released by the DOJ that suggested her former husband had sought treatment for a sexually transmitted infection and planned to supply it to his ex-wife too without her knowledge, asking what her “dominant emotion” was when she first heard about it, to which she answered: “Just unbelievable sadness.”
A spokesperson for Bill Gates has vehemently denied the allegations in question and previously told The Independent: “These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false.
“The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.”
Unlike other powerful men linked to Epstein, Gates has shown a commendable willingness to speak frankly about his past mistakes.
“Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that,” he recently told Australia’s 9News, adding that he was “foolish to spend time with him” and is “one of many people who regret ever knowing him.”
“The more that comes out, the more clear it will be that, although the time was a mistake, it has nothing to do with that kind of behaviour,” he added.
