Bill Gates was again pressed on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein in an awkward exchange on Australian television, saying he regretted dining with the late paedophile.
“I will say for the over a hundredth time, I shouldn’t have had dinners with him,” Mr Gates told the ABC 7.30 current affairs show of Epstein.
In 2019, The New York Times reported that the Microsoft founder, 67, met Epstein for dinner on three occasions at his Manhattan townhouse. Their connection reportedly began after Epstein had been convicted of sex offenses.
Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan detention centre in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Mr Gates has since called the meetings a “huge mistake” and said he wished he had taken his ex-wife Melinda French Gates’ advice to stay away from him.
In the interview broadcast on Monday, ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson said that Epstein had ways of “sexually compromising people” and asked Mr Gates whether he thought that was what Melinda was warning him about.
“No, I mean.... no, I had dinner with him and that’s all,” the tech billionaire replied.
The host then pressed Mr Gates about links between Epstein and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to which he replied: “There never was any relationship of any kind.”
The interview covered a wide range of topics from Covid-19 conspiracy theories about Mr Gates, the environment, Elon Musk and artificial intelligence.
Bill and Melinda French Gates divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage.
In an interview with CBS Mornings the next year, she said she had made it clear she did not like the meetings her ex-husband had with Epstein, describing him as “evil personified”.
Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in 2021, Mr Gates said he had hoped to raise money for philanthropic pursuits and called the Epstein meetings a “huge mistake”.
