Bill Gates says he ‘made a huge mistake’ meeting with Jeffrey Epstein for fundraising dinners
Bill Gates has admitted he made ‘a huge mistake’ allowing fundraising meetings to take place with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Meetings occurred on multiple occasions starting in 2013 but Gates’ relationship with Epstein dates back to 2011.
Epstein was also invited to fundraising dinners that promoted the Gates Foundation, even after Epstein had been convicted of soliciting prostitution from minors.
‘At the time, I didn’t realize that by having those meetings it would be seen as giving him credibility,’ Gates told The Times.
‘You’re almost saying, “I forgive that type of behavior,” or something. So clearly the way it’s seen, I made a huge mistake not understanding that.’
Gates says he ‘made a huge mistake’ meeting with Jeffrey Epstein for fundraising dinners
The dinners were a point of contention between the Microsoft billionaire and his now ex-wife and business partner, Melinda French Gates, who described Epstein as ‘evil personified.’
The couple announced their separation last year having been married for 27 years.
In earlier interviews, Gates stated how he ultimately stopped meetings with the convicted sex offender after he realized the meetings would not be productive for his philanthropic foundation.
‘I had dinners with him. I regret doing that. He had relationships he said with people he said would give to public health. Not nearly enough philanthropy goes in that direction,’ Gates said in a September 2021 interview.
‘Those meetings were a mistake. They didn’t result in what he purported, and I cut them off. You know, that goes back a long time ago now,’ he said to PBS.
The billionaire has previously shared how he ‘certainly’ had concerns about Epstein, who had pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute – years before the tech mogul met the financier.
‘I had several dinners with him hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts he had might emerge. When it looked like that wasn’t a real thing that relationship ended,’ Gates said.
‘It was a huge mistake to spend time with him and give him the credibility of being there. There were lots of others in that same situation, but I made a mistake.’
Melinda Gates in her CBS interview in March 2022. She lifted the lid on her marriage to Bill Gates for the first time including his encounters with Jeffrey Epstein
In her first interview since her divorce from the billionaire last year, Melinda told CBS Mornings in March that she insisted on meeting Epstein back in 2011 because she wanted to see ‘who this man was’.
‘I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time. I wanted to see who this man was and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door.
‘He was abhorrent, evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards. That’s why my heart breaks for these young women. That’s how I felt, and I am an older woman. He was awful.’
She told how Bill had to answer for the many times he met Epstein, and even suggested that it may have contributed to the divorce.
‘It was not one thing, it was many things [that led to the divorce]. Any of the questions remaining about what Bill’s relationship with him was… those are for Bill to answer. I made it very clear how I felt about him.’
A spokesperson for Gates told Insider last June that Gates had ‘absolutely no business partnership or personal friendship’ with Epstein, and any meetings between the two were about philanthropy.
Bill and Melinda Gates couple are pictured with their three kids in a 2018 family photo. The kids – Jennifer (center), Rory (right) and Phoebe (left) are now aged 26, 22 and 19. Bill and Melinda announced their split in May after 27 years of marriage
JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S UNDOING: A TIMELINE OF THE MILLIONAIRE PEDOPHILE’S DOWNFALL
1999 – Virginia Roberts Giuffre is allegedly recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell to became Epstein’s ‘sex slave,’ at 17. She also claimed that he forced her to have sex with his friend Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth.
2002 – Trump tells New York Magazine that his friend Epstein ‘likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’
2005 – A 14-year-old girl tells police that Epstein molested her at his Palm Beach mansion.
May 2006 – Epstein and two of his associates are charged with multiple counts of unlawful sex acts with a minor. State attorney of the time Barry Krischer, referred the case to a grand jury who heard from just two of the 12 girls law enforcement had gathered as potential witnesses. They returned just one single count of soliciting prostitution.
July 2006 – The case is referred to the FBI by the Florida Palm Beach police who were unhappy with how the case was handled.
2007 – Epstein’s lawyers meet with Miami’s top federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta, who would later become the Secretary of Labor in the Trump administration. They secretly negotiate the ‘deal of a lifetime’.
June 2008 – After pleading guilty to two prostitution charges, the millionaire was sentenced to 18 months in a low-security prison in exchange for prosecutors ending their investigation into his sex acts with minors and give him immunity from future prosecution related to those charges. In reality, Epstein was able to work from his office six days a week while supposedly incarcerated at the jail.
July 2008 – Accusers learned of the deal for the first time.
July 2009 – Epstein is released from jail five months early.
July 2018 – The Miami Herald publishes investigative journalist Julie K. Brown’s exposé on Epstein’s long history of alleged sexual abuse and news of the ‘deal of a lifetime’ after Acosta was made Labor Secretary.
February 2019 – The justice department opens an internal review into Epstein’s plea deal.
July 7, 2019 – Epstein is arrested after his private jet lands at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport from Paris. At the same time, federal agents break into his Manhattan townhouse where they uncovered hundreds of photographs of naked minors.
July 8, 2019 – Epstein is charged with sex trafficking charges which detail how he created a network of underage girls in Florida and New York, paying girls as young as 14 to provide ‘massages and sex acts.’ The charges carry a sentence of up to 45 years in prison.
July 11, 2019 – More than a dozen women, not previously known to law enforcement, came forward to accuse him of sex abuse.
July 24 – Epstein was found unconscious in his cell after an apparent suicide attempt. He was moved to suicide watch at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
August 9, 2019 – More than 2,000 documents are unsealed which reveal the lurid allegations against Epstein in detail.
August 10, 2019 – Epstein is found dead in his cell.