Bill Gates reportedly had an affair with a Russian bridge player around 2010 das „Wall Street Journal“ (WSJ).
The woman later met Jeffrey Epstein in 2013, who paid for her to attend a programming camp, WSJ reports.
In 2017, Epstein reportedly demanded that Gates pay him back the money for the camp and hinted that he would expose the affair.
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had an affair in 2010, reports the Wall Street Journal. Jeffrey Epstein, a US investment banker and convicted sex offender, is said to have known about it and threatened Gates with it in an email around seven years later.
According to the report, Epstein sent the email after multiple attempts to persuade Gates to start a large charity fund with US bank JPMorgan. Gates, however, kept declining.
Gates is said to have learned about his affair while playing bridge
The affair was probably between Gates and a Russian woman named Mila Antonova. She was in her 20s at the time. Both are said to have met at tournaments for the card game bridge, reported the Wall Street Journal. The Journal also found one YouTube video from 2010in which Antonova talks about her passion for bridge and mentions that she met Gates at a national bridge tournament.
Antonova met Epstein around 2013 while trying to get financing for her company, BridgePlanet. With her company she wanted to further develop the beloved game and teach it to others. Antonova, who is now a software engineer, told The Wall Street Journal that she was unaware of Epstein’s crimes when she introduced her company to him and others. That was about five years after his 2008 guilty plea and jail time for soliciting and procuring a minor into prostitution. From then on he was considered a convicted sex offender.
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“I just thought he was a successful businessman and wanted to help,” Antonova told the Journal, “I’m disgusted with Epstein and what he did.” When asked by Business Insider, Antonova did not immediately respond. After attempts to fund her company failed, Epstein paid Antonova to attend a programming camp so she could pursue another job in software development, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Gates is said to have only met with Epstein to expand his philanthropic involvement
Epstein met with Gates and other well-known figures such as Woody Allen and Noam Chomsky several times starting in 2011. A spokesman for the tech billionaire said Gates only dated Epstein metbecause he was described as someone interested in expanding Gates’ philanthropic efforts and now regrets ever working with Epstein.
“Mr. Gates only met with Epstein for philanthropic purposes,” a spokeswoman for Gates told the Journal. After repeatedly failing to lure Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein unsuccessfully attempted to use a previous relationship to threaten Mr. Gates.” A spokesman for Gates’ charity did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request.
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In Epstein’s various deals and affiliations with JPMorgan Chase, which are the subject of an ongoing court case, he is said to have attempted to set up a large charity fund that he hoped Gates would be a major investor in. The Journal reported that in several emails and messages to JPMorgan executives, he portrayed his relationship with Gates as a close personal one. Gates’ rep denied this: Epstein allegedly misrepresented his relationship with Gates.
After several attempts to persuade Gates to join the fund at various meetings, the effort is said to have failed. A spokesman for JPMorgan told the Journal that the bank “didn’t need” Epstein as a client or his introductions and that “knowing what we know today, we wish we had never done business with him.”
In 2017, Epstein emailed Bill Gates
In 2017, Epstein emailed Gates asking for a refund for Antonova’s coding camp. He is said to have implied that he knew of Gates’ infidelity and was ready to expose it, people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal. Gates reportedly never paid him, and it’s unclear if the two were still in touch after the 2017 email.
Epstein died in a New York jail in 2019 after research by the Miami Herald uncovered dozens of other victims blaming him and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, both of whom were prosecuted. Epstein’s death in prison was ruled a suicide, and Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison last June for her role in the human trafficking and abuse cases.
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