Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has admitted that attending fundraising meetings with Jeffrey Epstein after the financier had already been convicted of soliciting sex from a minor in 2008 was “a huge mistake”.
“At the time, I didn't realise that by having those meetings it would be seen as giving him credibility,” the billionaire philanthropist said in an interview for The Sunday Times.
Gates first met Epstein in 2011, inviting the financier to fundraising dinners that promoted the Gates Foundation.
“You're almost saying, 'I forgive that type of behaviour,' or something. So clearly the way it's seen, I made a huge mistake not understanding that,” added Gates.
Jeffrey Epstein died inside a jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges. His death was officially declared a suicide by the coroner.
Throughout his life, the hedge-fund manager had cultivated close relationships with some of the world’s most powerful men, including billionaires such as Leslie Wexner, politicians such as ex-president Bill Clinton and even royals, such as Prince Andrew.
Since 2011 Bill Gates met with Jeffrey Epstein at least three times at the financier’s Manhattan townhouse, according to sources cited by The New York Times in 2021. Furthermore, it was reported that employees of Gates’ foundation also paid a number of visits to Epstein’s mansion. Epstein had reportedly proposed helping to raise funds for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - plans that never materialised.
The meetings between Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein unsettled Melinda Gates, something she opened up about in her first interview after the power couple finalised their divorce in August 2021. The couple announced in May 2021 that they were separating after 27 years of marriage.
“I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time,” said Melinda Gates on CBS Mornings. Focusing on the one time she met the convicted sex felon, she added:
"I wanted to see who this man was and I regretted it from the second I stepped through the door. He was abhorrent, he was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards, so my heart breaks for these young women."
In earlier interviews, Bill Gates claimed that he had stopped meeting with Jeffrey Epstein after he decided that he would not be productive for Gates' philanthropic foundation.
"I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge. When it looked like that wasn't a real thing, that relationship ended," Gates said in an August 2021 CNN interview.
Gates, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975, stepped down as the company's chief executive in 2000, saying he wanted to focus on his foundation.