An independent review has confirmed what many long suspected: Bill Gates and senior figures at his foundation met with Jeffrey Epstein roughly 30 times between 2011 and 2014, brushing aside repeated internal warnings about the reputational and ethical risks of associating with a man already convicted of sex crimes involving a minor.
The findings, released by the Gates Foundation after a months-long external examination by the law firm WilmerHale, show that foundation staff “raised on multiple occasions the risks of associating with Epstein because of his prior conviction,” and that those concerns reached senior leadership, including Gates himself.
Gates was aware of the reputational issues tied to Epstein’s 2008 conviction and sentencing when the conversations began in 2011. Meetings took place on the foundation’s campus and at Epstein’s Manhattan residence. Interactions centered on potential philanthropy ideas that never materialized and ended by December 2014.
The review found no evidence that the foundation paid Epstein, no evidence of knowledge or participation in his sex-trafficking operations, and no evidence the meetings involved illegal conduct.
Yet the sheer volume of contact, combined with documented staff alarms that went unheeded, underscores a pattern of elite indifference that has defined the Epstein saga from the start.
Bill Gates ignored numerous warnings about the reputational risks of associating with Jeffrey Epstein, according to an independent review.
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 22, 2026
? https://t.co/ipdAMBh4Tz pic.twitter.com/99H1F6JUjb
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman commissioned the review in March 2026 with support from Gates and independent board members. WilmerHale conducted more than 50 interviews and reviewed foundation records.
In a statement, Suzman said the work “depends on integrity and earning and maintaining the trust of partners” and that the foundation is moving forward with board-approved steps to strengthen vetting, risk management, and accountability.
Gates himself stated: “Completing this review is an important step in providing the clarity that partners, employees, and grantees deserve as well as strengthening our oversight with additional policies going forward.”
The board approved new processes for centralized vetting of intermediaries, escalation of risks introduced by leadership, clearer dual-role rules, and tighter conflict-of-interest policies.
Notably, the review did not examine Gates’s personal emails or communications from his private office—a limitation disclosed in a footnote that leaves significant territory unexamined.
This latest disclosure lands amid a broader reckoning that has already forced Gates into congressional testimony and exposed layers of previous denials.
For years the Microsoft co-founder insisted his contacts with Epstein were limited and regrettable.
In 2019 he admitted the meetings were a mistake, saying he had given Epstein “some benefit by the association” after the financier’s conviction for soliciting a minor.
“My doing that was a mistake,” Gates said at the time. “None of that money ever appeared, and I gave him some benefit by the association, so I made a doubly wrong mistake there.”
That measured language has long contrasted with Gates’s visible discomfort whenever the subject arises. In one 2021 interview he snapped “He’s dead!” when pressed.
In a later appearance he insisted “There never was any relationship of any kind,” then offered an odd smile while repeating that he “shouldn’t have had dinners with him” for the “over 100th time.”
"I shouldn't have had dinners with him." – @billgates on his association with Jeffrey Epstein #abc730 pic.twitter.com/xdqHjyVv3U
— abc730 (@abc730) January 30, 2023
The February 2026 release of millions of Epstein files intensified the pressure. Documents included draft emails in which Epstein alleged Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted infection after encounters with Russian women and contemplated secretly medicating his then-wife Melinda.
A Gates spokesperson dismissed the claims as “absolutely absurd and completely false.” Melinda French Gates, speaking on NPR’s Wild Card podcast, did not contest the specifics.
She described “unbelievable sadness” and said the revelations contributed to the end of their marriage and her departure from the foundation. “They need to answer to those things, not me,” she stated. “And I am so happy to be away from all the muck.”
The files also contained a 2011 email from Hollywood producer Barry Josephson to Epstein referencing a question Epstein had posed to Gates: “How do we get rid of poor people as a whole?”
Josephson claimed to have “an answer.” The exchange then shifted to discussing a 16-year-old relative of Epstein’s for a film project. The document does not record Gates’s response, but it sat alongside the foundation’s documented meetings during the same period.
Even liberal media turned. On The View, hosts mocked Gates’s denials. Joy Behar ridiculed the familiar refrain “I was not on the island,” noting it was hardly the only location where Epstein operated. Sunny Hostin said the Justice Department files meant Gates “should answer to it.”
Lawmakers moved quickly. Rep. Nancy Mace publicly demanded a subpoena, writing that she had watched Melinda Gates’s interview and immediately asked House Oversight Chairman James Comer to compel Gates’s testimony.
“I have questions for Bill Gates about Epstein,” Mace stated. “Nobody is above the law. Not billionaires. Not the powerful. Nobody.” Comer confirmed the committee was consulting counsel and that “the odds are good” Gates would face questions under oath, noting bipartisan interest on the panel.
Gates ultimately sat for a transcribed interview with the Oversight Committee in June 2026.
He told lawmakers he “never witnessed nor had any indication” Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct, described the association as a “grave error in judgment,” and acknowledged he may have been in the presence of victims.
He has also said he was “quite stupid” to spend time with Epstein, believing it would advance global health philanthropy when it did not.
The foundation’s new review arrives as other strands of the Epstein network continue to fray under scrutiny. This week French model scout Daniel Siad, whose name appeared more than 2,000 times in the released files and who arranged introductions of young women to Epstein for over a decade, was found dead at his home near Paris.
An autopsy has been ordered. Siad is the second French modeling figure linked to Epstein to die before facing trial; Jean-Luc Brunel was found hanged in a Paris prison cell in 2022. Prosecutors say the broader trafficking investigation continues without him.
Meanwhile, former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has detailed how federal prosecutors in 2019 persuaded his office to halt its probe of Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in exchange for a promise to return state-related materials once the federal case concluded.
That promise was never kept. Current New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has waited more than 130 days for unredacted files while agents recently searched the property for possible remains.
Balderas said the Justice Department “burned” his office and is now burning the current one.
The pattern is consistent. Warnings are ignored. Evidence is withheld. Associates exit the stage under opaque circumstances. Powerful figures issue carefully lawyered statements of regret while the machinery of accountability moves slowly, if at all.
The Gates Foundation review closes one chapter with institutional reforms and a finding of no direct criminal knowledge. It does not erase the documented decision to meet a convicted sex offender nearly thirty times after staff raised alarms, nor does it resolve the unanswered questions that still surround the broader network of influence, money, and protection that allowed Epstein to operate for so long.
Accountability for the elite has never been the default setting of the administrative state. It remains a demand that must be forced.
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