Ted Waitt, the billionaire cofounder of Gateway Computer, told House investigators he paid Ghislaine Maxwell $7.2 million after their romantic relationship ended, and insisted he had no idea she was helping Jeffrey Epstein traffic underage girls while they were together.
Waitt sat for a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on April 30 inside the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. The committee has since released a transcript of his testimony, and the details paint a familiar picture: another wealthy, well-connected figure claiming total ignorance of the crimes happening in his orbit.
ABC News reported that Waitt told lawmakers he began seriously dating Maxwell around 2004 and maintained the relationship for roughly six years. During that time, he said, he interacted with Epstein fewer than five times, and described Maxwell as presenting Epstein as a "brilliant investor, money manager."
The most striking number in the transcript is the breakup payment. Waitt told the committee he gave Maxwell $7.2 million after their relationship ended because he wanted to support the lifestyle she had grown accustomed to during their years together.
"I just felt it was the right thing to do, not uncommon for people in my situation to do that. We lived a fairly extravagant life. In hindsight, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have done it."
Waitt said Maxwell did not handle the split well. He told lawmakers his staff warned him she "was very unhappy with the breakup and she was not in a good state." Rather than deal with her directly, he handed the matter off to his team.
"She was quite devastated by the breakup so at that point, I didn't want to get directly involved and I had my team handle the final details. I recall her not being happy with the amount, wanting more, but that doesn't matter."
So Maxwell received $7.2 million and still wanted more. That detail alone tells you something about the world these people inhabited, and the scale of entitlement that defined Maxwell's conduct long before she ended up in federal prison. Her sense of entitlement reportedly followed her behind bars, where fellow inmates described clashes and hundreds of complaints at FCI Tallahassee.
Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges in connection with Epstein and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022, offered a very different version of events during her own interviews with investigators. Then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed her for nine hours over two days last year.
In that interview, Maxwell claimed her relationship with Waitt ended after he was blackmailed for $10 million in exchange for dropping any mention of Maxwell from civil lawsuits filed against Epstein. Waitt flatly denied it. He told the committee the blackmail scenario Maxwell described "never happened."
The competing accounts underscore a persistent problem in the Epstein investigation: almost every major figure tells a story that conveniently minimizes their own role while pointing fingers elsewhere. Maxwell blames blackmail. Waitt says he was just a generous ex-boyfriend who didn't ask enough questions.
Waitt told the committee he first met Maxwell at a large dinner in Hong Kong that also included Bill Clinton and Epstein, among others. The Clinton name surfacing yet again in the Maxwell-Epstein orbit is no surprise to anyone who has followed this case. DOJ files have shown Maxwell was deeply connected to the Clinton Global Initiative, even as Hillary Clinton claimed she barely knew her.
On the subject of Epstein's influence over Maxwell, Waitt was more forthcoming than many witnesses have been. He acknowledged that Epstein appeared to hold sway over her.
"He did seem to have significant influence over her, she did always kind of look up to him, and I was not comfortable with that."
Yet despite that discomfort, Waitt maintained the relationship for six years. He also acknowledged that Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008, during the time Waitt and Maxwell were together, and said he now regrets not digging deeper into what that plea actually meant.
That is a remarkable concession. Epstein's 2008 guilty plea was not a secret. It was a matter of public record. A billionaire with resources, lawyers, and staff at his disposal chose not to look into the criminal history of the man who had "significant influence" over his girlfriend. And yet Waitt still expects the public to accept that he was simply oblivious.
Waitt told lawmakers plainly that had he known the truth, he never would have been involved with Maxwell at all.
"I can say unequivocally that if I knew then what I know now about Ms. Maxwell, I never would've befriended her or allowed her to be around my four children."
Fair enough. But the question the House Oversight Committee, and the public, ought to be asking is not whether Waitt knew. It is why he didn't. The broader Epstein investigation has been defined by a pattern of powerful people who claim they saw nothing, heard nothing, and asked nothing. Epstein's own accountant and lawyer told Congress the DOJ never once questioned them, raising serious doubts about whether investigators were ever willing to follow the money or the connections where they led.
The committee's release of Waitt's transcript is part of a broader effort to piece together how Epstein and Maxwell operated for decades with the help, or at least the indifference, of the wealthy and powerful. Maxwell is serving 20 years. Epstein is dead. But the network that enabled them remains largely unaccounted for.
The victims of Epstein and Maxwell's crimes have waited years for real accountability. Some have faced their own ordeals in the aftermath. One former model who accused Epstein of sexual abuse was reported missing in New York, a grim reminder that the human cost of this scandal extends far beyond courtroom transcripts and congressional hearings.
The transcript raises as many questions as it answers. What prompted the committee to call Waitt specifically? What civil lawsuits against Epstein did Maxwell reference in her blackmail claim? What evidence, if any, does the committee have beyond Waitt's own self-serving account?
Waitt's testimony reads like a man trying to draw a clean line between himself and the worst sex trafficking conspiracy of the modern era. He paid $7.2 million. He says he didn't know why he should have been worried. He regrets it now.
The committee should keep pulling on that thread. When a billionaire writes a $7.2 million check to a woman whose closest associate was a convicted sex offender, and claims it was just generosity, the American public deserves more than regret delivered two decades late.
In the Epstein-Maxwell saga, "I didn't know" has become the most expensive alibi in American history. Congress should stop accepting it at face value.
