By Martha McHardyShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberBill Gates is facing renewed questions over his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein after CBS uncovered a series of alleged messages between Epstein and an apparent adviser to the tech billionaire.
In the messages, which reportedly date back to 2017, Epstein and the supposed adviser to Gates discuss a donor-advised fund that Epstein wanted to operate. According to CBS, the fund never materialized, despite Gates' interest. CBS allege that the messages were sent about nine years after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution from a minor.
Newsweek has contacted Gates for comment via emails sent outside of regular working hours.
Why It Matters
The newly surfaced messages reported by CBS purport to shed additional light on the extent of Epstein’s outreach to high-profile individuals even after his 2008 conviction. While the fund discussed in the messages was never created, the correspondence potentially raises further questions about Epstein’s access to Gates’s inner circle and whether previous disclosures fully captured the scope of their interactions.
...What To Know
The alleged messages say that Gates' now ex-wife Melinda French Gates did not want her husband to talk to Epstein.
"He wants to talk to you but his wife won't let him," the adviser reportedly told Epstein. Minutes later, the adviser told Epstein of Gates: "he loves you," "he says hi," and "he feels bad about the [donor-advised fund] btw He thought great idea but wife wouldn't allow."
Later that day, Epstein reportedly texted the adviser back to say that former Obama White House counsel and current chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs Kathryn Ruemmler "would love to sit with Melinda and give her the other side of Jeffrey." According to CBS News, the meeting never took place. Newsweek approached Melinda French Gates for comment in an email sent outside of regular working hours.
Ruemmler is not accused of any wrongdoing. In October, Goldman Sachs told CBS News that Ruemmler’s contact with Epstein stemmed from her work at her former law firm, Latham & Watkins. Goldman Sachs declined to comment further to Newsweek.
The messages were revealed after Congress released more than 20,000 pages of documents connected to Epstein last week.
Several high-profile figures were named in the documents, including President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. None have been accused of any wrongdoing and all have denied having any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.
Gates has long distanced himself from Epstein, insisting back in 2019 that he had "no business relationship or friendship" with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
Epstein’s appointment logs—released by Congress in September—show a tentative breakfast meeting with Gates was scheduled in 2014. Newsweek approached Gates for comment at the time.
The tech billionaire has previously said to The Wall Street Journal in 2019: "I met him. I didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him."
He added: "I didn't go to New Mexico or Florida or Palm Beach or any of that.
"There were people around him who were saying, hey, if you want to raise money for global health and get more philanthropy, he knows a lot of rich people," he continued.
A spokesperson told Insider in 2019: "Epstein misrepresented the nature of his meetings with Gates while also working to insert himself behind-the-scenes without Gates's knowledge."
In a 2021 CNN interview, Gates acknowledged that meeting with Epstein was a "huge mistake." Gates said that his relationship with Epstein came to an end following a series of meetings in 2011—three years after Epstein's conviction for procuring a child for prostitution.
Meanwhile, Gates' ex-wife, Melinda, previously revealed in 2022 that the Microsoft founder's relationship with Epstein played a role in their divorce. "I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein…I made that clear to him," she said in an interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings
The couple announced in May 2021 that they were divorcing after 27 years of marriage.
What People Are Saying
In a statement to Newsweek from 2022, Gates said that he "deeply regretted meeting with Epstein, as he also issued an apology to French Gates for the pain he caused her.
"Meeting with Epstein was a mistake that I regret deeply," he told Newsweek. "It was a substantial error in judgment. I remain dedicated to my work at the Gates Foundation in partnership with Melinda, where our focus is to help reduce global inequities, giving every person the chance to live a healthy and productive life.
"I will always be sorry for the pain that I caused Melinda and our family. I admire Melinda and everything she does to improve the lives of women and girls around the world, and I'm grateful for the work we continue to do together at our foundation."
What Happens Next
On Tuesday, lawmakers in both chambers voted by wide margins to compel the Justice Department to make its Epstein records public, following prolonged delays pushed by GOP lawmakers and the Trump administration. Trump signed the bill on Wednesday kicking starting a 30-day process for the files to be released by the Department of Justice.
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