Epstein bankrolled Bill Gates’ reported ex-girlfriend for years—then asked Gates to ‘reimburse’ him five months before he died
“Playing with fire.”
Read the April 30, 2018 email that Jeffrey Epstein sent to Bill Gates’ chief of staff, Larry Cohen, according to files released by the Department of Justice.
She told Cohen that Epstein had put Mila Antonova up in one of his apartments on the Upper East Side for a week. Russian bridge player Antonova said: Luck She said through her lawyer that she had a “relationship” with Gates around 2010 and that she had been reported elsewhere to be Gates’ mistress and that she had received financial assistance from Epstein for years. Epstein wanted Gates to know.
Actually, Epstein wanted Gates to know this for a long time.
Documents released by the DOJ in January show that between 2013 and at least 2018, Epstein helped arrange Antonova’s visa, wired her cash, repeatedly set her up in various apartments he kept in Manhattan, and paid for coding training. Later, Epstein addressed these payments and pressured the billionaire founder. Microsoft The emails are to compensate him.
In one opinion, Epstein touched on the “sanctity of friendship.” In a July 29, 2017 email to Cohen, she quoted what she claimed were Gates’ own words: “If you can help delay this for three years, that will be enough” — a reference to Antonova securing housing and financing after her relationship with Gates ended, Epstein said. Three years have now passed, Epstein wrote. “She had paid for school fees, helped arrange the visa,” and Antonova “had to stop playing bridge tournaments and live on a friend’s couch with no air conditioning every day.”
“I know you and Bill share my views on the sanctity of friendship,” he wrote to Cohen.
The pressure campaign over the payments to Antonova was part of an extensive and complex effort by Epstein to penetrate Gates’ inner circle and leverage the Microsoft co-founder’s connections and influence. Fortune reported on this effort earlier this week.
Antonova’s lawyer told Luck He had no knowledge of Epstein’s efforts to pressure Gates and had not provided “services, information, or any other assurance or action” in exchange for his support. The lawyer said Antonova “naively accepted” Epstein’s help and believed that Epstein truly wanted to help her.
Five months before his 2019 arrest on charges of conspiracy to traffic minors in sex, Epstein was still emailing Gates asking for repayment.
A spokesman for Gates wrote: “As Gates has repeatedly said, he regrets his meeting with Epstein.” Luck. “The files show how extensively Epstein worked to insert himself into Gates’ life (both directly and through others in Gates’ orbit) and how Epstein continued these efforts even after Gates stopped seeing and communicating with him. To be clear, Gates never witnessed or engaged in any unlawful or illegal conduct.”
Cohen, who at the time was not only Gates’ chief of staff but also the managing partner of Gates’ private office, Gates Ventures, did not respond to that question. Fortune’s request for comment. (Cohen is now at venture firm Biomatics Capital.)
Antonova’s lawyer confirmed in a letter Luck He said Antonova met Gates at a bridge tournament in 2009 and “maintained a relationship with him for a while.”
‘Mila happened’
Epstein’s relationship with Antonova began with Boris Nikolic, who was then Gates’ chief scientific advisor at the Gates Foundation and investment firm Bgc3. Nikolic was also one of Epstein’s most frequent reporters; The two exchanged thousands of emails over the decade from 2009 until Epstein’s death in 2019.
On May 23, 2013, Nikolic, then still working at the Gates Foundation, sent an email about Antonova to someone who appeared to be an immigration lawyer, describing her as a Russian friend who was “overextending his stay in the United States” because of his boat crew visa. He wrote that the lawsuit “had to be VERY creative” and added that he was “willing to absorb the cost.”
Antonova’s lawyer confirmed Luck She said Nikolic referred her to an immigration lawyer, but she disputed that he offered to cover the fees, which Antonova and her “then-husband” paid instead. According to her lawyers, Antonova’s last contact with Gates occurred in May 2013, around the same time Nikolic contacted her.
That summer, Nikolic’s business relationship with Gates began to collapse, according to the documents. In September, he left the foundation with a $5 million advance. In a late-night email to Epstein in November, Nikolic attempted to create a timeline from his inbox of what was going on between him and Gates.
“Mila happened,” she wrote on May 22, a day before emailing her immigration lawyer. Three weeks later, a Paris meeting took place between Epstein and Gates, which both men mentioned in Justice Department emails. A month after that, Nikolic said, Gates sent him an email saying that “Melinda had found out” and that their business relationship should end.
Epstein’s response came just after midnight: “He’s crying because he knows it’s wrong. Not because he’s sorry.”
“Epstein was a master manipulator and I deeply regret being involved with him,” Nikolic said. Luck. No false accusations were made against him.
Gates later confirmed the relationship. At a town hall with Gates Foundation staff last month Wall Street Magazine, HE said he “had affairs” with his employees – one of which was “with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events.” He said Nikolic knew about the events and told them to Epstein.
How did it start
On July 14, 2013 – in the midst of negotiations over Nikolic’s departure from the Gates Foundation – Epstein brought up Antonova with Nikolic for the first time in their correspondence: “Are you going to ask the lawyer helping Mila about her situation?” By November, Epstein had scheduled meetings with both Nikolic and Antonova, according to Justice Department documents.
Over the next year, Epstein financed at least part of Antonova’s life. On October 9, 2014, he told his accountant, Richard Kahn, that Bridge Union Inc. sent an email with telegram instructions for an organization called: “Rich sent 7k to Mila this month and will send again next month.” Emails between Epstein’s assistant, Leslie Groff, Antonova, and building staff also show Groff sending apartment details and door codes to apartments Epstein maintained on the Upper East Side.
“Everything is great,” Antonova emailed Groff in late November 2014. “Thank you for having me.”
Antonova’s lawyer confirmed that Epstein gave her “several unsolicited monetary gifts,” paid for coding training and used her apartment “several times” between 2014 and 2018. The lawyer added that Antonova only met Epstein in person twice, was not present during Epstein’s stay, and had no reason to believe that Epstein was using her status as leverage.
By mid-2016, Gates had stopped communicating directly with Epstein; The last email he sent to Epstein, DOJ documents show, is from December 2014. All communications thereafter were filtered through Cohen, whom Epstein did not trust and described as “Melinda’s son” in emails to Nikolic.
Epstein’s response was to let Gates know that the connection to Antonova was still alive. On June 15, 2016, he sent Nikolic an email that appeared to be addressed to Gates: “You can tell your son I’m still hearing from Mila. I sent him to computer school.”
A year later, on July 21, 2017, Antonova wrote a letter expressing her gratitude to Epstein: “You and Boris [Nikolic] He did something extraordinary for me. “It created an opportunity for me to grow and gain control over my life.” Their help was crucial in getting him to where he was then: sleeping in a friend’s living room in Palo Alto, paying $700 a month for a couch, preparing for tech industry interviews with coding classes entirely funded by Epstein.
The next day, Epstein emailed Cohen, saying he had heard from an “old friend” of Gates and that they needed to talk. He told Cohen he planned to continue spending money on his “old friend” but added that he “received neither thanks nor a refund.” He gave Cohen a deadline: “If you think I shouldn’t do it, let me know by tomorrow night.”
‘Your friend Bill is crazy’
Privately, Epstein was stunned by Gates’ standoffishness. On July 25, 2017, she wrote to Nikolic: “Your friend Bill is crazy. His ex-girlfriend. Can’t afford air con, can’t afford to go to the bridge…this story takes Trump off the front pages. The richest man in the world is so cheap his ex-bridge girl and toy is living on a friend’s couch. WOWO.”
Cohen sent an email to Epstein saying Gates would “nod” for their conversation soon. But on August 6, Epstein emailed again: “No confirmation from Bill?” Cohen’s response: “He hasn’t been around for a while.”
The silence lasted until December 2017, and Epstein changed tactics. “The word is, I’m about to run out of money,” he emailed Cohen. Cohen reached out and wanted to talk, but Epstein was out of jokes. He said he also emailed Gates directly: “He asked why I didn’t get BG approval or offer to repay the advance as per his request. It’s all weird.”
In April 2018, Antonova stayed at Epstein’s apartment again. Building staff emailed Epstein’s assistants to confirm that a welcome letter had been left for “Mila Antanova to arrive on Thursday, April 26.” Days later, on April 30, Epstein sent Cohen an email with the message that started this story: “FYI, I had to host Mila in New York for a week. I wasn’t there. I was playing with fire,” he said.
Antonova’s lawyer said she had “no knowledge of and could not speculate” about Epstein’s communications with Cohen and that she had no basis to believe that Epstein was using his finances as leverage against Gates.
last question
On January 5, 2019, Epstein emailed Gates directly: “I guess you’d want to compensate me at some point… It seems weird to ask that.”
Four days later, he wrote to Gates and Cohen again, requesting a meeting: “I think it would be best if we set aside an hour to meet while Bill is on the East Coast.”
It’s unclear whether Epstein received any response. Shortly thereafter, he began drafting a document and asked an employee to review “background photos and emails” to determine when Epstein and Nikolic first met Gates at an airport in Washington, D.C.; this was an apparent reference to a meeting at Reagan National that Nikolic helped organize in December 2013.
On January 20, 2019, Epstein emailed Gates: “I hope you follow Bezos’ lead.” It’s unclear what Epstein meant by the emails. Ten days ago, Jeff Bezos announced his recent divorce from MacKenzie Scott. National Researcher She reported on Bezos’ extramarital affair with Lauren Sanchez.
Five months later, Epstein was arrested on charges of conspiracy to traffic underage sex. A month later, he was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
Gates, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, was called to testify before a House Committee on his ties to Epstein last week.
This story first appeared on: Fortune.com
