Former CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates has signed his friendship with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a “big mistake”.
The New York Times reported that Gates began a friendship with the disgraced financier in 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. (Epstein was sentenced to 18 months behind bars, but was eventually released in 2010 after completing his home confinement sentence.)
Bill’s relationship with Epstein came under new scrutiny when the financier took his own life at age 66 in August 2019 following his arrest on federal sex-crime charges. The tech mogul’s marriage to Melinda French Gates it ended two years later, and she later told CBS News that her husband’s connection to Epstein was one particular point of conflict.
“It’s not one thing (that caused the split), it was a lot of things. But I didn’t like that I had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein,” Melinda revealed in March 2022. “I made that clear.”
New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch has broken his silence after being linked to the late disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women and also talked about movies, philanthropy and investments,” Tisch said of his relationship with Epstein on Friday (…)
The Epstein connection resurfaced in 2026 when Bill vehemently denied the veracity of the emails where Epstein allegedly claimed that the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from “Russian girls”. (The emails were sealed by the Justice Department with 100 new photos on January 30, 2026, pursuant to the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.)
Keep scrolling to learn more about what Gates has had to say about his friendship with Epstein over the years.
Bill Gates admitted he was “of course” worried about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Anderson Cooper pointed out during an August 2021 segment with Bill Gates on CNN that Melinda French Gates first met with divorce lawyers when the Jeffrey Epstein scandal resurfaced in 2019.
The CNN reporter later asked Bill if he ever had “concerns” about his ties to the convicted sex offender at the time.
Bill Gates in January 2026.
Getty Images/Stefan JERREVANG/TT News Agency/AFP“Oh, of course,” Bill confirmed.
Bill then clarified that his “relationship (with Epstein) ended” when he realized the disgraced financier could not fulfill promises to raise billions for The Gates Foundation.
“It was a big mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility to be there,” Bill admitted. “There were many others in the same situation, but I made a mistake.”
Bill Gates shared his regret over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
During a September 2021 interview with Judy Woodruff activated PBS News HourBill Gates was questioned about the nature of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
“I had dinner with him,” Bill admitted. “I regret doing it.”
According to Bill, Epstein had promised to leverage his relationships with “people who he said would give to global health,” which is one of the tech executive’s prominent charitable focuses.
“These meetings were a mistake. They did not result in what he intended and I cut them off. This goes back a long time,” he insisted. “There is nothing new in this.”
When Woodruff countered that there were reports of her meeting as a guest with Epstein for “several years,” Bill shook his head in disagreement.
“I said I regret those dinners,” he insisted. “There is absolutely nothing new in this.”
Asked if there was a lesson to be learned, Bill retorted, “Well, he’s dead, so in general, you always have to be careful.”
Bill Gates said Jeffrey Epstein was not honest about his background
Bill Gates accused Jeffrey Epstein of trying to downplay the seriousness of his 2008 conviction while discussing the scandal with Savannah Guthrie activated today in 2024. Guthrie noted that Bill first met with Epstein after the convicted felon had already served his prison term.
“I didn’t realize that meeting him almost minimized the incredibly horrible things he did,” Bill said. “I’ve learned more about it over time, but I’d add it to the list of big mistakes.”
Bill confirmed that his ex-wife Melinda French Gates discouraged him from getting involved with Epstein at the time.
“Melinda’s advice was sound and I should have followed it sooner than I did,” he acknowledged.
Bill denied that he ever personally witnessed Epstein doing anything inappropriate.
“He was a bad person and he had a reason to think these meetings would lead to something good,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have made them.”
Bill Gates called himself “pretty stupid” for spending time with Jeffrey Epstein
In a January 2025 interview with The Wall Street JournalBill Gates offered insight into how Jeffrey Epstein gained influence with the rich and powerful.
“In retrospect, I was a fool to spend time with him. And he kind of spent time with various people spending time with other people,” Gates recalled. “So yeah, I think it was pretty stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. Actually it didn’t, it was a big mistake.”
Bill said his experience with Epstein “definitely” made him more skeptical about who he met later.
Bill Gates denies Jeffrey Epstein’s allegation that he had an STI from ‘Russian Girls’
A spokesman for Bill Gates has flatly denied there is any truth to Jeffrey Epstein’s allegations that the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from “Russian girls”.
The controversy over Bill’s past with Epstein was renewed in January 2026 after the Department of Justice released 3 million new documents and 100 photos obtained from Epstein’s estate. The Justice Department released the documents to comply with the 2025 passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In a January 2013 email purportedly written by Epstein to Bill, the sex offender accused the former Microsoft executive of “disregarding (not) our friendship” and complained that one of Bill’s partners had told him he had “engaged in morally inappropriate behavior.”
President Donald Trump, Woody Allen, former President Bill Clinton and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor are seen 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 stock photos, out of more than 95,000 images in total, recovered from Epstein’s estate as part of (…)
“To add insult to injury then with tears in my eyes, implore me to please delete the emails about your illness, your request to provide antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis,” he later wrote in the email.
In response, Bill’s representative said people“These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false. All these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration at not having an ongoing relationship with Gates and the limits he was going to trap and defame.”
The emails were reported to have been drafted by Boris Nikolica former chief science and technology adviser at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who resigned in 2014. Nikolic denied having any business ties to Epstein in 2019, Bloomberg informed at the time.
There is no evidence that Epstein’s email was ever sent or that Bill was aware of it before it was released by the Justice Department.
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