Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist, has apologised to staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his past association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, calling it a “huge mistake to spend time with him” in remarks that laid bare the continuing personal and institutional fallout from one of the most damaging relationships of his public life.
Gates made the admission at an internal town hall on Tuesday, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, which said it reviewed a recording of the session. The apology was directed not only at foundation staff in general, but specifically at the senior executives he had taken with him to meetings with Epstein — a disclosure that suggests the relationship extended further into the foundation’s orbit than previously acknowledged.
The Gates-Epstein connection first entered the public domain in October 2019, but has been given fresh and uncomfortable detail by the release of documents by the United States Department of Justice relating to the late financier, who died in a federal detention facility in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Among the newly released material is an email in which Epstein claimed that Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted infection and had requested antibiotics to be administered covertly to his then-wife, Melinda — an allegation Gates has flatly denied. The documents also detail a pattern of meetings between the two men, encompassing dinners, telephone calls, and discussions about philanthropy, painting a picture of a relationship that was considerably more developed than a casual acquaintance.
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Gates told foundation staff that he first met Epstein in 2011 and had failed to adequately check his background before doing so — a significant admission given that Epstein had by that point already pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. He acknowledged continuing to meet Epstein through 2014, including encounters abroad, though he insisted that he had never stayed overnight at any of Epstein’s properties and had never visited the financier’s private island in the US Virgin Islands, which has become synonymous with the abuse allegations against him.
In a candid departure from the central subject of the town hall, Gates also admitted to two extramarital affairs, whilst stating that he did not participate in any of Epstein’s criminal activities. He said both women had come into his life through his own social and professional activities, and identified them in terms that were notably specific. “One of the women was a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and the other a Russian nuclear physicist,” he said, according to the Journal’s account.
“I apologise to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” Gates said.
The town hall took place against the backdrop of the continuing reputational strain the Epstein association has placed on Gates and his philanthropic work. His relationship with Melinda Gates, who divorced him in 2021, had already been complicated by her reported discomfort with the Epstein meetings. In an interview earlier this month, Melinda Gates said the latest release of documents had dredged up “painful times” in her marriage, and expressed relief at having moved on. “I’m so happy to be away from all the muck,” she said.
The Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest private charitable organisations, has largely sought to insulate its programmes and reputation from the controversy. Tuesday’s town hall suggests that Gates has concluded that a degree of transparency with his own staff is now unavoidable
