Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has chalked up his friendship with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a “huge mistake.”
The New York Times reported that Gates began a friendship with the disgraced financier in 2011, which was three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. (Epstein was sentenced to 18 months behind bars but was ultimately released in 2010 after completing the end of his sentence on home confinement.)
Bill’s relationship with Epstein came under new scrutiny when the financier died by suicide at age 66 in August 2019 following his arrest on federal sex crimes charges. The tech mogul’s marriage to Melinda French Gates ended two years later — and she subsequently told CBS News that her estranged husband’s connection to Epstein was a particular sticking point.
“It’s not one thing [that led to the split], it was many things. But I did not like that he’d had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein,” Melinda revealed in March 2022. “I made that clear to him.”
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The Epstein connection resurfaced in 2026 when Bill vehemently denied the veracity of emails where Epstein allegedly claimed that the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from “Russian girls.” (The emails were unsealed by the Justice Department along with 100 new photos on January 30, 2026, in compliance with the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.)
Keep scrolling for more about what Gates has said about his friendship with Epstein over the years.
Bill Gates Admitted He ‘Certainly’ Had Concerns About His Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein
Anderson Cooper pointed out during an August 2021 segment with Bill Gates on CNN that Melinda French Gates first met with divorce lawyers around the time the Jeffrey Epstein scandal resurfaced in 2019.
The CNN reporter later quizzed Bill over whether he ever had any “concerns” about his ties to the convicted sex offender at the time.
“Oh, certainly,” Bill confirmed.
Bill then clarified that his “relationship [with Epstein] ended” when he realized that the disgraced financier could not follow through on promises of raising billions for The Gates Foundation.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there,” Bill admitted. “There were lots of others in that same situation but I made a mistake.”
Bill Gates Shared His Regret Over His Friendship With Jeffrey Epstein
During a September 2021 interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour, Bill Gates was grilled about the nature of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
“I had dinners with him,” Bill acknowledged. “I regret doing that.”
According to Bill, Epstein had promised to leverage his relationships with “people he said would give to global health,” which is one of the tech executive’s prominent charitable focuses.
“Those meetings were a mistake. They didn’t result in what he purported and I cut them off. That goes back a long time ago now,” he insisted. “There’s nothing new on that.”
When Woodruff countered that there were reports of her guest meeting with Epstein over “several years,” Bill shook his head in disagreement.
“I’ve said I regretted having those dinners,” he insisted. “There’s absolutely nothing new on that.”
Asked if there was any lesson to be learned, Bill retorted, “Well, he’s dead so, in general, you always have to be careful.”
Bill Gates Said Jeffrey Epstein Was Not Honest About His Background
Bill Gates accused Jeffrey Epstein of trying to downplay the severity of his 2008 conviction while discussing the scandal with Savannah Guthrie on Today in 2024. Guthrie pointed out that Bill first met with Epstein after the convicted criminal already served his prison sentence.
“I didn’t realize that meeting with him almost downplayed the incredibly awful things he did,” Bill said. “I learned more about that over time but I’d add that to the list of big mistakes.”
Bill confirmed that his ex-wife Melinda French Gates discouraged him from getting involved with Epstein at the time.
“Melinda’s advice was sound and I should have followed it sooner than I did,” he acknowledged.
Bill denied that he ever personally witnessed Epstein doing anything inappropriate.
“He was a bad person and I had a reason I thought those meetings would lead to something good,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have done them.”
Bill Gates Called Himself ‘Quite Stupid’ For Spending Time With Jeffrey Epstein
In a January 2025 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates offered insight on how Jeffrey Epstein gained influence with the wealthy and powerful.
“In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him. And he, sort of, got time with various people by spending time with other people,” Gates recalled. “So yes, I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that, it was just a huge mistake.”
Bill said that his experience with Epstein “definitely” made him more skeptical about whom he met with later on.
Bill Gates Denied Jeffrey Epstein’s Allegation That He Got an STI From ‘Russian Girls’
A spokesperson for Bill Gates strenuously denied there was any truth to Jeffrey Epstein’s allegations that the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from “Russian girls.”
Controversy over Bill’s past with Epstein was renewed in January 2026 following the Justice Department’s release of 3 million new documents and 100 photos obtained from Epstein’s estate. The Justice Department published the documents to comply with the 2025 passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In one January 2013 email — purportedly written by Epstein to Bill — the sex offender accused the former Microsoft executive of “disregard[ing] our friendship” and complained about being told that he’d “engaged in morally inappropriate behavior” by one of Bill’s associates.
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“To add insult to the injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis,” he wrote later in the email.
In response, Bill’s representative told People, “These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false. 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.”
The emails were reportedly drafted for Boris Nikolic, a former Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation chief advisor for science and technology who resigned in 2014. Nikolic denied having any business ties to Epstein in 2019, Bloomberg reported at the time.
There is no evidence that Epstein’s email was ever sent or that Bill was even aware of it before it was published by the Justice Department.
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