Bill Gates has spoken publicly for the first time since his name reappeared in newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents, saying he “regrets every minute” he spent with the late financier.
Speaking with 9News in an interview broadcast on Wednesday, the Microsoft co-founder said he had been “foolish” to ever spend time with Epstein, who was convicted of sex offences in 2008.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent, the email is false,” Gates said. “So, I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? It just reminds me, every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that.”
The comments came days after the US Justice Department released nearly three million pages of Epstein-related material, which included references to some of the world’s most high-profile men — among them, Gates, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and former US President Bill Clinton. None have been accused of crimes by authorities, and all have denied any wrongdoing.
According to The New York Times, the new batch of files included several draft emails Epstein wrote to himself in 2013, implying he had an ongoing personal and professional connection with Gates — a claim Gates and his representatives have strongly denied.
In one of those drafts, Epstein suggests that Gates had engaged in extramarital sex and claimed Epstein had helped him obtain drugs “in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls”, as well as facilitate alleged trysts with married women. In one message, Epstein wrote as though he were resigning from roles linked to the Gates Foundation and a Gates-affiliated think tank, saying he had been “caught up in a severe marital dispute between Melinda [French Gates] and Bill” and asked to participate in things “that have ranged from the morally inappropriate to the ethically unsound” and “potentially over the line into illegal”.
Another email read more like a diary entry, with Epstein accusing Gates of choosing to “disregard and discard our friendship developed” over six years in order to protect his own reputation. It is unclear if any of these notes were ever actually sent to Gates.
A spokesperson for Gates dismissed the allegations as “absolutely absurd and completely false”, telling NBC News that the “only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame”.
Gates told 9News he met Epstein in 2011, years after the financier’s initial conviction, and that they had “a number of dinners” together. “It’s factually true that I was only at dinners. I never went to the island, I never met any women,” he said. “The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health.”
“In retrospect, that was a dead end … I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.”
Gates was in Australia this week partly on behalf of the Gates Foundation, encouraging the government to commit more support to global health initiatives.
Meanwhile, Melinda French Gates addressed the situation in an interview with NPR’s Wild Card podcast, describing the new revelations as “painful” and saying she felt “unbelievable sadness” seeing her former husband’s name resurface in the files.
“For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up. Brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” she said. “Whatever questions remain there … those questions are for those people, and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”
Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide, and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in trafficking minors for him.
Lead image: Getty / AP News
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