Bill Gates admitted having affairs with two Russian women but insisted they were not Jeffrey Epstein‘s victims as he apologised to staff over his ties to the disgraced financier during a town hall meeting at the Gates Foundation on Tuesday.
Gates told employees it had been a ‘huge mistake’ to spend time with Epstein and to involve foundation executives in meetings with the convicted sex offender, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
‘I apologise to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,’ he said, according to a recording cited by the Journal.
The report said Gates acknowledged having two affairs with Russian women that Epstein later became aware of, but stressed they did not involve any of Epstein’s victims.
‘I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,’ he told staff.
A spokesperson for the philanthropic organisation confirmed the Microsoft founder had ‘taken responsibility for his actions’.
Previously released U.S. Department of Justice documents show Gates met Epstein repeatedly after the financier had served a prison sentence, with discussions said to have centred on expanding Gates’ philanthropic work.
The documents also included pictures of the Microsoft founder posing with women whose faces are redacted.
Bill Gates admitted having affairs with two Russian women and apologised to staff over his links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein during a town hall meeting. Pictured: Larry Summers, Jeffrey Epstein, Gates and Boris Nikolic at Epstein’s Manhattan house in 2011. This was among the three million files published by the DOJ
Russian bridge player Mila Antonova and Bill Gates in a photo she posted to the Contract Bridge Facebook page on August 14, 2009
The documents also included pictures of the Microsoft founder posing with women whose faces are redacted
The files included multiple new undated images of Epstein and Gates together
According to the Journal, Gates told the foundation’s staff that the images were pictures that Epstein asked him to take with Epstein’s assistants after their meetings.
‘To be clear I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,’ Gates added, according to the report.
Gates said he began meeting Epstein in 2011, several years after the financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor.
He acknowledged he was aware Epstein had been subject to an 18-month period of travel restrictions but admitted he did not properly scrutinise his background.
He continued seeing him even after his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, raised concerns in 2013.
A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation told reporters that Gates held a scheduled town hall with the employees and answered questions on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files.
‘In the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.’
The spokesperson also said the Gates Foundation statement acknowledged what was shared by the billionaire during the town hall, and the statement is all that the foundation would say about the report.
Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation said it did not make any financial payments to Epstein or employ him at any time.
The billionaire also pulled out of India’s AI Impact Summit hours before his scheduled keynote last week.
The Gates Foundation, chaired by Bill Gates and started by him and his then-wife in 2000, is one of the world’s biggest funders of global health initiatives.
