{"id":2300827,"date":"2026-02-26T08:45:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2300827"},"modified":"2026-02-26T08:45:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:45:41","slug":"bill-gates-says-sorry-to-his-staff-over-epstein-connection-and-admits-to-two-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/bill-gates-says-sorry-to-his-staff-over-epstein-connection-and-admits-to-two-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates says sorry to his staff over Epstein connection and admits to two affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,\u201d the Microsoft founder told his employees in response to the Department of Justice\u2019s release of the Epstein files, according to The Wall Street Journal<\/span>, citing an audio recording of the latest biannual Gates Foundation town hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,\u201d Gates said while apologising to foundation executives for introducing them into Epstein\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein. I apologise to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n

To give her credit, she was always kind of sceptical about the Epstein thing<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist explained that he first met the paedophile in 2011, three years after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida, but that he had not looked into the financier\u2019s background and was only dimly aware of an \u201c18-month thing\u201d that limited his travel.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that his then wife, Melinda Gates, had expressed concern about Epstein in 2013, but that he had ignored her caution and continued to see him socially.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing what I know now makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it\u2019s clear there was ongoing bad behaviour,\u201d Gates said, according to the WSJ<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/svg><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>
\n

Melinda Gates expressed concern about Epstein in 2013, the Microsoft founder said. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Alluding to his ex-wife, he added: \u201cTo give her credit, she was always kind of sceptical about the Epstein thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gates continued to map out the course of their relationship, saying he had met with Epstein in 2014, taken trips on his private jet and spent time with him in Germany, France, New York and Washington, but \u201cnever stayed overnight\u201d at his properties or visited Little St James, his now-notorious private Caribbean island. He said he did not see Epstein again thereafter, although there were \u201cancillary issues\u201d that Epstein continued to email him about, but Gates said he chose not to respond to them.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/svg><\/p>\n
\n
\n
<\/svg><\/p>\n
\"Bill<\/div>\n<\/div>
\n

Bill Gates said he saw nothing ‘illicit’ during his time with Epstein Photo: Bloomberg<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Today\u2019s News in 90 seconds – Thursday February 26<\/p>\n

Gates also said the women pictured with him in the files were Epstein\u2019s assistants, whom the billionaire had asked to pose with him.<\/p>\n

During the town hall, the billionaire also admitted to two affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.independent.ie \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,\u201d the Microsoft founder told his employees in response to the Department of Justice\u2019s release of the Epstein files, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing an audio recording of the latest biannual Gates Foundation town hall. \u201cTo be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2300828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[384434,22942],"class_list":["post-2300827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-bill-gates","tag-jeffrey-epstein"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Bill-Gates-says-sorry-to-his-staff-over-Epstein-connection.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2300827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2300829,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300827\/revisions\/2300829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2300828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2300827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2300827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2300827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}