(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal, billionaire Bill Gates said he was “foolish” and “quite stupid” to have associated himself with deceased sex trafficker and alleged Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein.
“In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him, and he sort of got time with various people by spending time with other people,” Gates told Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker. “I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health, philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that, and it was just a huge mistake.”
When asked whether the fallout from Epstein has made him more “wary,” Gates said it “definitely” has.
“I mean, are you kidding?” he added.
The Journal revealed in May 2023 that Epstein discovered that Gates had an affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova. Epstein may have attempted to use that knowledge to blackmail Gates.
Never forget that Bill Gates was asked in an interview if he thinks his ex-wife Melinda was warning him about Jeffrey Epstein “sexually compromising” him.
His response: “No — I had dinner with him, and that's all.”
— ALX (Vine Nationalist) 🇺🇸 (@alx) May 22, 2023
According to the Journal, Epstein told Gates that he knew about the affair after Gates refused to donate $100 million to his charity.
Epstein also made Boris Nikolic, a Gates confidant and top science adviser at the time, as a backup executor in his will just days before Epstein died in 2019.
Nikolic told the Journal that Epstein didn’t discuss the idea with him beforehand, that he subsequently declined to serve, and that he believes he was listed by Epstein as a way to strike at Gates.
“He couldn’t have listed Bill because that would have been too obvious, so he chose me,” he reportedly said. “I have come to believe it was likely a retaliatory move against Bill Gates.”
Gates has repeatedly denied any criminal wrongdoing with respect to his links to Epstein—but it may have cost him his marriage to Melinda French Gates.
In 2022, French Gates allegedly had serious doubts about her husband’s friend the entire time.
“I did not like that [Bill] had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein,” Melinda said in an interview last year.
“I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time. I wanted to see who this man was, and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door.”
She later called him “evil personified.”
Meanwhile, Gates might be trying to rekindle his relationship with his ex-wife. He recently told The Times of London that his divorce is “the mistake I regret the most.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
