Bill Gates admitted to Gates Foundation staff members that he had two affairs and said it was a "huge mistake" to have spent time with late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
At a town hall Tuesday, Gates apologized for his connection to Epstein following the release of emails from 2013 that Epstein sent to himself, claiming that he was Gates' "right hand" and had participated in things for him that were "ethically unsound." Representatives for Gates have called Epstein's claims "absolutely absurd and completely false."
"I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit," Gates said Tuesday, according to a recording exclusively reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Gates acknowledged that he had two affairs with women that Epstein later discovered but said they didn’t involve Epstein’s victims.
"To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him," he said, the Journal reported.
"It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein," he said, adding: "I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made."
The pair started meeting in 2011, Gates said, years after Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. He told staffers that he wasn't fully aware of the charges and that he continued to meet with Epstein.
"Knowing what I know makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it’s clear there was ongoing bad behavior," he said.
Gates also said his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, "was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing."
Gates told staff members that he never visited Epstein’s private island but did fly on a private jet with him and spent time with him in Washington, New York, Germany and France. He said that because there would be other prestigious people at their meetings, it "made it easier for me to feel like this was a normalized situation."
"It definitely is the opposite of the values of the foundation and the goals of the foundation," he told staffers. "And our work is very reputational sensitive. I mean, people can choose to work with us or not work with us."
Gates said in the town hall that 2014 was the last year he met with Epstein.
A spokesperson for the foundation told NBC News that Gates holds town halls twice a year and that he answered questions submitted by staff members about issues including "the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health."
"In the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions," the spokesperson said.
