What you need to know
- Bill Gates denies having any business relationship or friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
- Epstein was arrested earlier this year on charges of child sex trafficking.
- Epstein had connections to several prominent business people.
Bill Gates said that he never had a friendship or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Gates' response comes after The New Yorker revealed Epstein had secured millions of dollars from backers, reportedly including Gates, for the MIT Media Lab.
Gates clarified that while he met Epstein, he did not have any business relationship or friendship and did not go to New Mexico, Florida, or Palm Beach. Epstein was arrested earlier this year on child sex trafficking charges and later died by suicide while in prison.
Gates was asked in the interview by the Wall Street Journal to clarify his relationship with Epstein. Gates said that while he met Epstein, he was never at any parties with him.
I met him. I didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him. 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. Every meeting where I was with him were meetings with men. I was never at any parties or anything like that. He never donated any money to anything that I know about.
In addition to the quotes from the interview with Gates, a representative for Gates told Business Insider that there was no business partnership or personal relationship between Gates and Epstein.
Epstein was introduced to Bill Gates as someone who was interested in helping grow philanthropy. Although Epstein pursued Bill Gates aggressively, any account of a business partnership or personal relationship between the two is simply not true. And any claim that Epstein directed any programmatic or personal grantmaking for Bill Gates is completely false.
Epstein had many connections to rich individuals, but according to statements made by Gates and a Gates representative, Epstein did not have a friendship or business relationship with Gates.
