Bill Gates has cancelled his speech that was scheduled for Thursday at a major AI summit in India, the Gates Foundation said, after the Microsoft founder was named in the recently released Epstein files.
“After careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities, Mr. Gates will not be delivering his keynote address,” the foundation said in a statement.
“The Gates Foundation remains fully committed to our work in India to advance our shared health and development goals,” it added.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tech CEOs are speaking at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Thursday about the opportunities and threats posed by artificial intelligence. The Gates Foundation said the president of its Africa and India offices would speak instead.
Gates earlier this month said he regrets “every minute” he spent with Jeffrey Epstein, after the latest tranche of documents released by the US Justice Department contained a draft email in which Epstein alleged Gates engaged in extramarital affairs.
“Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize,” Gates told 9News Australia in an interview. “That email was never sent. The email is false. I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way?”
Gates’s spokesperson issued a similar denial, stating, “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.”
His former wife, Melinda French Gates, told US National Public Radio that the document dump brought back “memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage.” She added, “Whatever questions remain there of what — I can’t even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”
The couple divorced in 2021. The mere mention of someone’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply any wrongdoing by that person.
