Bill Gates calls his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein 'a mistake' and a 'mirage' because 'none of that money ever appeared'
Bill Gates has broken his silence about his association with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, calling it a "mistake". Speaking at The New York Times Dealbook Conference in New York, Gates said that he believed that Epstein, who was a financier, would help bring money to his global health cause.
Calling it a "mirage", he said, "None of that money ever appeared, and I gave him some benefit by the association, so I made a doubly wrong mistake there." Epstein had been associated with many big names while he was alive, including Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and former president Bill Clinton. He died earlier this year in a Manhattan jail cell after being arrested and charged with sex trafficking. Theories circulated that it was a murder but the New York medical examiner's office ruled it as a suicide.
Gates met with Epstein many times, including in 2013 when he was the CEO of Microsoft, which was after Epstein received his sweetheart plea deal in the case filed by Florida prosecutors in 2008. He was accused of grooming minor girls for sex in 2007. Gates also visited Epstein in his New York home thrice, reports have said. He also flew in Epstein's jet, infamously called the Lolita Express. However, his representative said that he didn't know it was Epstein's plane.
In an interview with Wall Street Journal earlier, Gates had said that they weren't friends. "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,” Gates told WSJ, "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."
Speaking at the conference he also added that it is difficult to ascertain if the money received for philanthropy is always clean and there is a risk to be making a mistake. "There’s some countries that we just haven’t done any recruiting in at all because we’re not in a position to really make those judgments,” he said, adding, "I feel bad. We probably will at some point accept someone into the Giving Pledge and it will turn out that their fortune is a disreputable fortune."
