Bill Gates Addresses Jeffrey Epstein Connection in New Interview

Co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates attends a press conference on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on May 25, 2022. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates again responded to questions about his relationship with sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein, saying that “there was never any relationship.”

“I had dinner with him and that’s all,” Gates said in response to a question from an Australia Broadcasting Corporation reporter. When pressed further, Gates that “there never was any relationship of any kind” after being asked if there is a connection between Epstein and the Gates Foundation.

The reporter, Sarah Ferguson, asked if he regretted the relationship, saying that it went against the wishes of his ex-wife, Melinda. “You’re going way back in time. But yeah, I will say for the, you know, over [the] hundredth time that I shouldn’t have had dinners with him,” Gates said in the interview, published Jan. 30.

Ferguson noted that Epstein was involved in “sexually compromising people” and asked whether his ex-wife warned him about that. “No,” Gates said.

Gates, one of the wealthiest people in the world, was asked in 2021 by PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff about whether he had a connection to Epstein or not. Gates at the time provided similar answers but stated that he had “dinners” with Epstein, whereas in Australian TV interview, he said that he had “dinner” with him.

“What did you know about him when you were meeting with him, as you said yourself, in the hopes of raising money?” Woodruff asked Gates

“You know, I had dinners with him. I regret doing that,” he replied. “He had relationships with people he said, you know, would give to global health, which is an interest I have. You know, not nearly enough philanthropy goes in that direction.”

Gates conceded at the time that “those meetings were a mistake.”

“You know, that goes back a long time ago now, so there’s nothing new on that,” Gates added.

Pressed further by Woodruff, the Microsoft mogul asserted: “You know, I’ve said I regretted having those dinner, and there’s nothing ... absolutely nothing new on that.”

Melinda French Gates, his former wife, told CBS in 2022 that she wasn’t happy that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. “I wanted to see who this man was, and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door,” she said at the time. “He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. I had nightmares about it afterwards. My heart breaks for these young women.”

Before the CBS interview aired, Bill Gates told news outlets that his meeting with Epstein “was a mistake that I regret deeply” and was “a substantial error in judgment.”

Gates told The Times of London in May that those dinners were a part of efforts to fundraise but “didn’t result in what he purported, and I cut them off.” He added, “At the time, I didn’t realize that by having those meetings it would be seen as giving him credibility. You’re almost saying, ‘I forgive that type of behavior,’ or something.”

Epstein Details

Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 after pleading guilty to soliciting a prostitute who was a minor, died in August 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Officials found him hanged inside his Manhattan jail cell, triggering widespread speculation about his cause of death.

Jeffrey Epstein (C) appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla., on July 30, 2008. Uma Sanghvi/Palm Beach Post via AP

The New York City Medical Examiner’s office at the time ruled that Epstein, 66, committed suicide by hanging himself with his bedsheets. But in early 2020, Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist who previously worked for the same medical examiner’s office, alleged Epstein’s death was “more indicative of homicide” after graphic photos of his death were made public.

A former associate and girlfriend of Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty in 2021 of child sex trafficking in connection to the former financier. She was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison and is currently serving time in Florida’s low-security FCI Tallahassee prison.

During a recent phone interview with a British television show, Maxwell suggested that Epstein didn’t kill himself.

“I believe that he was murdered,” Maxwell said in a Talk TV interview published on Jan. 23. “I was shocked. Then I wondered how it had happened because as far as I was concerned, he was going to—I was sure he was going to appeal.”

Over the years, Epstein was reportedly known to have powerful friends and acquaintances, including politicians, business magnates, celebrities, and high-powered lawyers—further adding to the speculation around his jailhouse death.