Short Answer
Bill Gates met with Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions between 2011 and 2014, well after Epstein’s 2008 sex offender conviction. Gates has acknowledged the meetings and stated he regrets them. Reports also linked Gates to Epstein through MIT Media Lab donations and suggested Epstein leveraged the relationship to seek philanthropic credibility.
In Detail
The Meetings
In 2019 and subsequent years, reporting confirmed that Gates met with Epstein at least three times, including at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2011. Gates also flew on Epstein’s private jet at least once, in 2013, from Teterboro Airport to Palm Beach. A Gates spokesman confirmed the flight, stating Gates had believed it was going to be used for charitable purposes.
According to reporting by The New York Times and later by the Wall Street Journal, Epstein pitched Gates on joining a multibillion-dollar charitable fund in partnership with JPMorgan. Gates’s team ultimately declined, but the discussions continued over several years.
MIT and Boris Nikolic
Epstein used his relationship with Gates as social proof with institutions like MIT. Joi Ito, the MIT Media Lab director who resigned over concealed Epstein donations, cited Gates’s association with Epstein as part of what normalized Epstein in institutional circles. Boris Nikolic, who served as Bill Gates’s science adviser, was named as a surprise heir in Epstein’s 2019 will — a connection Nikolic publicly rejected and said he did not consent to.
Gates Divorce Reporting
The Wall Street Journal reported that Melinda Gates had cited her husband’s relationship with Epstein as one of several reasons she found their marriage irretrievably broken, and that she had met with divorce attorneys as early as 2019 following media reports about the Gates-Epstein connection. Bill and Melinda Gates divorced in 2021.
Gates’s Statements
Gates has consistently maintained that the relationship was solely professional and aimed at philanthropy, that he made a mistake associating with Epstein, and that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes beyond what was publicly known. He has expressed regret for the meetings.