Gates calls Epstein meeting a grave error, says he was blackmailed

Bill Gates told House investigators that meeting Jeffrey Epstein was a grave error in judgment and that Epstein later tried to use Gates’s extramarital affairs as leverage. In a closed-door transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee, the Microsoft co-founder said the encounter grew out of introductions from trusted Gates Foundation officials and ended up producing nothing but regret.

Gates said he first met Epstein in January 2011 at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse after being put in touch by Melanie Walker and Boris Nikolic. He said discussions from 2011 to 2014 about potential giving structures for Gates’s philanthropic fund went nowhere, and Epstein never delivered the fundraising help he had promised. Gates also said he believed doing business with Epstein was acceptable at the time, even though Epstein had already been convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution.

The testimony placed new weight on a central question in the committee’s Epstein probe: whether a wealthy, well-connected figure can exploit access, silence and embarrassment to maintain influence long after public disgrace. Gates said Epstein may have sought a personal relationship, but Gates was never interested and never reciprocated. He said Epstein never got him to his island, ranch or Florida home, and he never witnessed criminal conduct or saw any indication of ongoing criminal behavior.

Gates had already told a Gates Foundation town hall in February 2026 that his association with Epstein had been a huge mistake. In the committee interview, he went further, saying Epstein tried to blackmail him over his affairs, a claim that underscores how private misconduct can become a point of pressure in elite circles.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer said lawmakers wanted to know what Gates saw, whether he knew what was going on and whether he was involved. Ranking Democrat Robert Garcia called Gates’s continued dealings with Epstein after the 2008 conviction a horrific judgment call. The interview came as the committee pressed ahead with a broader review of the federal handling of the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases, following Bill Clinton’s more than six-hour closed-door deposition in February and the release of another Epstein transcript on June 4.