“The richest man in the world is so cheap,” Jeffrey Epstein said about billionaire Bill Gates. He claimed Gates’ story “would take Trump off the front pages.”
The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist’s private life was recently revealed to have been darker than his charitable public image.
The latest release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed Gates’ relationship with the child molester, and the women he sold as sex slaves to powerful people.
Highlights
- Jeffrey Epstein accused Bill Gates of leaving his Russian mistress, Mila Antonova, broke and living on a friend's couch after their affair.
- Emails suggest Epstein tried to blackmail Gates using details of his affair and pressured Gates to join a charitable fund.
- Gates admits meeting Epstein was a mistake but denies financial dealings and visiting Epstein's island or meeting women through him.
- An email draft from Epstein alleges Gates secretly sought antibiotics for his then-wife Melinda to treat an STD.
Epstein claimed Gates left his former mistress broke
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In a 2017 email released by the Department of Justice, Epstein alleged that Gates left his former Russian mistress “broke” and sleeping on a friend’s couch. He said this story would eclipse the scandals involving U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The richest man in the world is so cheap, his former bridge girl and toy, lives on a friends sofa. That story would take trump off the front pages,” Epstein wrote in the email.
The “former bridge girl” is alleged to be Mila Antonova, a bridge player nearly 30 years younger than Gates, who was allegedly his mistress while he was still married to Melinda French Gates.
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Epstein claimed Antonova was “broke” and “had little money,” and that he “sent her some.”
“She said she had little money, couldn't afford [an] air conditioner, was living on a friend's couch. Really needed money,” he wrote.
Gates, 70, had an affair with Antonova in 2010, when she was in her 20s, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2023. Antonova has also been linked to notorious Kremlin spy Anna Chapman.
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Epstein later met her in 2013, WSJ added, and paid for her to attend software coding school. In 2017, Epstein asked the billionaire to reimburse him for the cost of the course.
Epstein apparently used the knowledge of Gates’ affair to coerce an association between the two, after the sex offender failed to persuade Gates to participate in a multibillion-dollar charitable fund that he tried to establish.
Epstein allegedly tried to use Gates’s affair to blackmail him
Image credits: The Department of Justice
Gates called his meetings with Epstein “a huge mistake,” adding they were solely about philanthropy.
A spokesperson said, “Mr. Gates had no financial dealings with Epstein,” including over Antonova’s tuition.
“Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes. Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,” a spokesperson for Gates told The Daily Beast.
Gates and Epstein met more than half a dozen times, and Gates flew on Epstein’s private jet, dubbed the ‘Lolita Express,’ where many of his sex crimes are said to have taken place.
Antonova previously told the WSJ she did not know about Epstein’s crimes when they met.
“I had no idea that he was a criminal or had any ulterior motive,” she said of Epstein. “I just thought he was a successful businessman and wanted to help.”
“I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did,” she added.
Gates has claimed in multiple interviews that he never visited Epstein’s island and never met women through him.
Another salacious claim made by Epstein in an email was that Gates contracted an STD after having “sex with Russian girls,” and asked the financier for advice to secretly give French, his then-wife, antibiotics.
Image credits: The Department of Justice
The email, sent by Epstein to himself in 2013, appears to be a draft written to Gates from the perspective of Gates’s then-advisor, Boris Nikolic.
There were seven such versions of the email, The New York Post reported, but it is unclear why these emails were drafted or why Epstein sent them to himself.
As per Nikolic, Epstein wrote that Gates “begged him” to delete emails regarding “your STD, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis.”
Another email sent on the same day alleges Gates had pressured Nikolic into “participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate to the ethically unsound.”
Gates allegedly asked Epstein for advice on how to secretly give his wife antibiotics
Image credits: The Department of Justice
“During the past few weeks, I have been caught up in a severe marital dispute between Melinda and Bill,” an email dated July 18, 2013, said.
“From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls, to facilictating [sic] his illicit trysts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall fro [sic] bridge toumamnts [sic].” Nikolic also wrote about resigning in one email.
Image credits: The Department of Justice
Gates and French have both responded to the allegations. A representative for Gates said in a statement, “These claims—from a proven, disgruntled liar—are absolutely absurd and completely false.
“The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.”
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false,” Gates said on 9News on Wednesday. “I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that.”
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French, who announced her divorce from Gates in 2021, had cited his affairs and friendship with Epstein as reasons for the divorce.
Appearing on NPR's Wild Card podcast on Tuesday, French said she felt sorry for the victims of Epstein.
“I think we’re having a reckoning as a society, right? No girl, no girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him,” she said.
Melinda French said her ex-husband needs to answer questions about the Epstein files
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“It’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages those girls were; I remember my daughters being those ages. So, for me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” she continued, adding that she had nothing to do with those files.
“Whatever questions remain there of what—I can’t even begin to know all of it—those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”