former CEO of Microsoft bill gates Formed friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a “huge mistake.”
new york times Gates began a friendship with the disgraced financier in 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting and soliciting prostitutes, the report said. (Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison but was eventually released in 2010 after completing his home confinement sentence.)
In August 2019, financier Epstein committed suicide at the age of 66 after being arrested on federal sex crime charges. Bill’s relationship with Epstein came under new scrutiny. The tech mogul’s marriage Melinda French Gates It ended after two years — and she later told CBS News that her estranged husband’s relationship with Epstein was a particular sticking point.
“This is not a thing [that led to the split]there are many things. But I didn’t like his meeting with Jeffrey Epstein,” Melinda revealed in March 2022. “I made that clear to him. “
Epstein’s connections resurfaced in 2026, when Bill strongly denied the authenticity of Epstein’s emails claiming the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from a “Russian girl.” (The DOJ unsealed these emails along with 100 new photos on January 30, 2026, following the passage of the Epstein Documents Transparency Act.)
Keep scrolling to learn more about what Gates said about his friendship with Epstein over the years.
Bill Gates admits he’s ‘of course’ worried about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Anderson Cooper As noted on CNN’s With Bill Gates in August 2021, Melinda France Gates first met with divorce lawyers in 2019 when the Jeffrey Epstein scandal resurfaced.
A CNN reporter later asked Bill if he had any “concerns” about his relationship with a convicted sex offender at the time.
Bill Gates, January 2026.
Getty Images/Stefan JERREVANG/TT News Agency/AFP“Oh, sure,” Bill confirmed.
Bill later clarified that his “relationship [with Epstein] That ended when he realized the disgraced financier couldn’t deliver on his promise to raise billions for the Gates Foundation.
“Spending time with him and making him believe he was there was a huge mistake,” Beal admitted. “There are a lot of other people in the same situation, but I made a mistake.”
Bill Gates regrets friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
In an interview in September 2021 Judy Woodruff exist PBS NewsHourBill Gates was grilled over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
“I had dinner with him,” Bill admitted. “I regret doing it.”
According to Bier, Epstein had promised to leverage his relationships with “people who he said would contribute to global health,” one of the tech executive’s prominent philanthropic priorities.
“Those meetings were a mistake. They did not achieve the results he claimed and I interrupted them. This goes back a long time,” he insisted. “There’s nothing new about this.”
When Woodruff countered that there were reports that she met with Epstein “over a period of several years,” Beale shook her head in disagreement.
“I said I regretted those dinners,” he insisted. “There’s absolutely nothing new about this.”
When asked if there were any lessons, Bill retorted: “Well, he died, so generally speaking, you have to be careful.”
Bill Gates says Jeffrey Epstein was dishonest about his background
Bill Gates has accused Jeffrey Epstein of trying to downplay the seriousness of his 2008 conviction when discussing the scandal with others. Savannah Guthrie exist today 2024. Guthrie noted that Bill first met Epstein after Epstein had completed his sentence.
“I didn’t realize that meeting him almost downplayed the incredibly horrific things he did,” Beale said. “I’ve learned more about it over time, but I’ll add it to the list of big mistakes.”
Bill confirmed that his ex-wife Melinda France Gates dissuaded him from associating with Epstein at the time.
“Melinda’s advice was sound and I should have followed it sooner,” he admits.
Bill denies that he ever witnessed Epstein do anything inappropriate.
“He’s a bad guy and I have reason to think some good will come from these meetings,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have done that.”
Bill Gates calls spending time with Jeffrey Epstein ‘very stupid’
In an interview in January 2025 wall street journalBill Gates offers insight into how Jeffrey Epstein gained influence among the rich and powerful.
“Looking back, the time I spent with him was silly. And he, by spending time with other people, was spending time with different people, in a way,” Gates recalled. “So, yeah, I think I was stupid. I thought this would help me pursue a career in global health philanthropy. The fact that it didn’t do that was just a huge mistake.”
Beal said his experience with Epstein “definitely” made him more suspicious of people he met later.
Bill Gates denies Jeffrey Epstein’s allegation that he contracted STDs from ‘Russian girl’
Bill Gates’ spokesman has vigorously denied whether Jeffrey Epstein’s allegations that the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from a “Russian girl” are true.
Controversy over Bill’s past with Epstein resurfaced in January 2026 after the Justice Department released 3 million new documents and 100 photos obtained from Epstein’s estate. The Justice Department released the documents to comply with the Epstein Documents Transparency Act of 2025.
In a January 2013 email purportedly written by Epstein to Bill, the sex offender accused the former Microsoft executive of “ignoring”[ing] our friendship,” and complained that one of Bill’s colleagues told him that he had “committed unethical behavior.”
President Donald Trump, Woody Allen, former President Bill Clinton and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor all appear in newly released photos obtained from the estate of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. On Friday, December 12, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released 19 archival photos recovered from Epstein’s estate, totaling more than 95,000 photos. […]
“To add insult to injury, you then, with tears in your eyes, begged me to delete emails about your STDs, your request that I provide you with antibiotics (which you could secretly give to Melinda), and a description of your penis,” he later wrote in an email.
In response, Bill’s representative told people“These claims are absolutely ridiculous and completely false. The only thing these documents show is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to frame and smear him.”
The emails were reportedly drafted to Boris NikolicFormer chief science and technology adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who resigned in 2014. Nikolic denied in 2019 any business relationship with Epstein, Bloomberg reported at the time.
There is no evidence that Epstein’s emails were ever sent, and there is no evidence that Beal knew about them before the Justice Department released them.
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