Bill Gates admits he had affairs with two Russian women but insists they were not ‘Epstein victims’ and he ‘did nothing illicit’ in apology to his employees
Bill Gates admitted to having affairs with two Russian women but insisted the women were not victims of Jeffrey Epstein, apologizing to staff for their ties to the disgraced financier at a Gates Foundation town hall meeting on Tuesday.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Gates told employees that spending time with Epstein and including foundation executives in meetings with the convicted sex offender was a “big mistake.”
“I apologize to the other people who were dragged into this situation because of the mistake I made,” he said, according to a recording quoted by the Journal.
The report stated that Gates admitted to having two relationships with Russian women that Epstein later became aware of, but emphasized that these were not related to any of Epstein’s victims.
During the town hall, Gates told employees: ‘I have had relationships, one with a Russian bridge player I met at bridge events with me, and the other with a Russian nuclear physicist I met through business activities.’
‘I didn’t do anything illegal. “I didn’t see anything illegal,” he added.
A spokesperson for the charity confirmed that the Microsoft founder ‘takes responsibility for his actions’.
Previously released U.S. Department of Justice documents show that Gates met with Epstein repeatedly after the financier served his prison sentence, and that the conversations focused on expanding Gates’ philanthropic work.
The documents also included photos of the Microsoft founder posing with women with corrected faces.
Bill Gates admitted to having affairs with two Russian women and apologized to staff at a town hall meeting for his connections to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Picture: Larry Summers, Jeffrey Epstein, Gates and Boris Nikolic at Epstein’s Manhattan home in 2011. This was among three million files released by the Department of Justice.
Russian bridge player Mila Antonova and Bill Gates in a photo shared on the Contract Bridge Facebook page on August 14, 2009.
The documents also included photos of the Microsoft founder posing with women with corrected faces.
Files contained multiple new and undated images of Epstein and Gates
According to the Journal, Gates told foundation staff that the images were photos that Epstein asked him to take following meetings with Epstein’s assistants.
“Obviously, I didn’t spend any time with the victims, the women around them,” Gates added, according to the report.
Gates said he began meeting with Epstein in 2011, several years after the financier was convicted of soliciting a minor in 2008.
He acknowledged that he was aware that Epstein was subject to an 18-month travel restriction, but also admitted that he did not properly investigate his background.
He continued to see Gates even after his then-wife, Melinda French, expressed concerns in 2013.
A spokesman for the Gates Foundation told reporters that Gates held a scheduled town hall with employees and answered questions on a variety of topics, including the release of the Epstein files.
‘At the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, answered many questions in detail and took responsibility for his actions.’
The spokesperson also said that the Gates Foundation statement acknowledged what the billionaire shared during the town hall and that that statement was all the foundation would say about the report.
Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation said it had never made any financial payments to Epstein or hired him.
The billionaire also withdrew from India’s AI Impact Summit last week, hours before his scheduled keynote.
The Gates Foundation, chaired by Bill Gates and founded by him and his then-wife in 2000, is one of the world’s largest funders of global health initiatives.
