Tech billionaire Bill Gates has publicly addressed his past association with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, calling his decision to meet with him “foolish” and a “mistake.”
In an interview with 9 News Australia, Gates responded to renewed scrutiny following the release of U.S. Department of Justice documents, known as the Epstein Files. The files include unsent emails Epstein wrote to himself containing unsubstantiated claims about Gates.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent, the email is false. I don’t know what his thinking was there,” Gates stated, dismissing the allegations within the documents.
Gates explained that he met Epstein around 2011. “Over a period of 3 years I had a number of dinners with him. The focus was always — he knew a lot of very rich people and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end.”
He expressed clear regret, saying, “I’ve said many times, but I’ll say again… I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.”
When asked about the nature of the allegations in the files, Gates was firm: “It’s factually true that I was only at dinners. I never went to the island. I never met any women… The more that comes out, the more clear it’ll be that, although the time was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behavior.”
The association has long been a point of controversy and personal strain. Melinda French Gates, his ex-wife, recently told NPR’s “Wild Card” podcast that details in the files brought back “memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage.”
A spokesperson for Gates previously told TMZ the claims in the documents were “absolutely absurd and completely false,” characterizing them as evidence of “Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.”
