Bill Gates sat behind closed doors on Capitol Hill Wednesday and told the House Oversight Committee what he has spent years trying to calibrate in public: that his multi-year relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a mistake, that he never visited Epstein's island or homes, and that Epstein tried, and failed, to leverage knowledge of Gates' extramarital affairs to keep the billionaire in his orbit.
The Microsoft co-founder arrived on June 10 for a voluntary, transcribed interview with the panel investigating the government's handling of Epstein-related investigations. ABC News first reported on Gates' prepared opening statement and details from inside the session, drawing on multiple sources familiar with the interview.
What emerged was a portrait of a man who spent at least four years, from 2011 through 2014, engaging with a known sex offender in pursuit of philanthropic dollars that never materialized. Gates called it a "grave error in judgment." Whether that concession satisfies the committee, Epstein's victims, or the public is another matter entirely.
In his prepared opening remarks, Gates laid out a timeline. He said his interactions with Epstein started with three preliminary meetings in 2011 and two more in 2012, during which he discussed the goals of his philanthropic work. More extensive conversations followed in 2013 and 2014, focused on potential giving structures, donor-advised funds and recruiting wealthy individuals Epstein claimed were eager to make large contributions.
"I never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct. I never went to his island, his ranch, or his Florida home. I have never victimized anyone."
Gates told lawmakers he was aware Epstein had a criminal conviction that was sexual in nature but said he did not know the details of Epstein's crimes, according to multiple sources familiar with the interview. He said he was not friends with Epstein and did not socialize with him beyond dinners where Epstein pitched fundraising schemes for global health.
That framing, Epstein as a useful middleman, not a personal companion, has been Gates' line for years. But the sheer duration of the relationship, and the documentary trail now public, raises fair questions about how much due diligence one of the world's richest men applied before spending years at the table with a registered sex offender.
Gates acknowledged during the interview that he had two extramarital affairs, which Epstein later discovered. He told lawmakers he met those women separately from Epstein and that Epstein never offered women to him. Gates said he believes Boris Nikolic, his former science advisor, informed Epstein about the affairs.
In his prepared statement, Gates addressed the fallout directly:
"As the public can now see, based on what has been released in the files, Epstein was working to use information about my infidelities, in addition to many lies that he layered on top, to pressure me to re-engage with him. He was unsuccessful in this effort, but it shows some of the ways he tried to leverage his interactions with me to further his agenda."
A Gates spokesperson said in 2023 that Epstein "tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates." Epstein had claimed in draft emails that Gates' affairs resulted in a sexually transmitted infection, a claim Gates has denied.
The personal wreckage extended beyond politics. Melinda French Gates, who divorced Bill Gates in 2021, has said the split was driven in part by his association with Epstein. Speaking on NPR's Wild Card podcast, she described memories of "some very, very painful times" and added pointedly: "They need to answer to those things, not me." The fallout from the Epstein files has cost Gates other relationships as well, including long-standing ones in the business world.
Justice Department documents released this year under the Epstein Transparency Act fill in details Gates' public statements have long glossed over. The documents show Gates first met Epstein in 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. Gates and Epstein continued to communicate for at least three years after that first meeting.
In a 2010 email to Nikolic, Gates wrote: "I won't have time to do another meeting and I won't be able to do the dinner with Jeff Epstein." He added: "I was looking forward to the dinner." That email predates what Gates' own prepared statement describes as the start of his interactions with Epstein, a discrepancy the committee may want to explore further.
By February 2014, Gates was writing enthusiastically about Epstein's proposed philanthropic fund, describing it as "a good analogy" and saying, "It is clearer to me now than before and it could be a great thing." But by December of that year, the tone shifted. Gates wrote that in terms of the donor-advised fund, "I don't think we have any people at this point who will move to do something soon" and that "it won't come together with 4-6 partners anytime soon."
Epstein pitched his concept as "cloud computing for the giving world." The Gates Foundation said no fund was ever created and no money was ever transferred to Epstein. A foundation spokesperson stated that "a small number of foundation employees interacted with Epstein to try to secure this potential funding" but the foundation "did not pursue any collaboration."
Gates previously described his awareness of Epstein's criminal history as knowledge of an "18-month thing" that limited Epstein's travel. That phrasing, reducing a guilty plea for soliciting a minor to a scheduling inconvenience, has drawn criticism. Gates told 9News Australia in February that Epstein knew "a lot of very rich people" and said he could get them to give money to global health. "In retrospect, that was a dead end," Gates said.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told reporters during a break that Gates had been "cooperative" but was at times "pushing back." Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said "there has been a lot of apologies" from Gates and added: "He is sorry he associated with Epstein so much... but in the end what is done is done."
The committee has been busy. In recent weeks, it conducted transcribed interviews with former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Lesley Groff, Epstein's longtime executive secretary. The panel's pursuit of Bondi over the release of Epstein files has been a separate flashpoint in the investigation.
Chairman James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who first reached out to Gates in March, told reporters Wednesday that he wants Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Trump's nominee for attorney general, to appear before the panel in July. Comer said the main question for Blanche centers on "what, if any, documents are left out there" from the Epstein investigation.
Garcia, in a June 2 letter to Comer, pushed for "video-taped, transcribed interviews" with both Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel. Garcia said he wants any Blanche deposition to be under oath, videotaped, and released to the public. The committee has so far only recorded video of depositions held with witnesses under subpoena, not voluntary interviews like the one Gates gave.
Comer also said he is seeking a transcribed interview with attorney Alan Dershowitz, who told reporters he is eager to testify. Dershowitz said he "has a lot of relevant information" about Epstein and called himself "the most relevant person for them to call." He said he wants any testimony to be open and under oath. Dershowitz acknowledged that determining who was "complicit" in Epstein's network is complicated, saying, "The area is much grayer than it looks."
Garcia noted that Gates referenced other individuals involved with Epstein during his interview, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The committee's appetite for witnesses shows no sign of fading. The scrutiny of billionaires and their influence has become a bipartisan preoccupation, though the motives on each side differ.
The Gates Foundation commissioned an external review by March to assess its past engagement with Epstein and its policies for vetting philanthropic partnerships. Foundation officials said they expect an update later this summer. A spokesperson said that during a February town hall, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Gates "spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions."
Taking responsibility is a phrase that does a lot of work. Gates spent years meeting with a man who had pleaded guilty to a sex crime involving a minor. The philanthropic fund that justified those meetings never produced a dollar. The relationship did produce leverage that Epstein tried to use against Gates, a divorce that his ex-wife partly attributed to the association, and a document trail now scattered across millions of pages of Justice Department releases.
The DOJ and FBI said last year they found "no credible evidence" that Epstein used his sex trafficking network to lure wealthy and influential men into blackmail schemes. That finding may comfort some. But the question before the Oversight Committee is not just whether Epstein succeeded in blackmailing anyone. It is how the government investigated, or failed to investigate, the full scope of Epstein's operation, and whether powerful people received treatment that ordinary citizens would not.
The history of billionaire philanthropists is filled with complicated legacies. Gates' case adds a darker chapter: a man whose fortune and reputation bought access to the highest levels of public health and global policy, yet who spent years socializing with a convicted sex offender because that offender claimed he could raise money from rich friends.
Gates told reporters on his way into the hearing room Wednesday morning that he hoped his testimony would be "helpful to the work, important work of the committee to find justice for the victims." That is the right sentiment. Whether his four years of dinners and emails with Jeffrey Epstein, followed by years of carefully managed public statements, amount to a full accounting is a question the committee, and the public, will keep asking.
The committee's work is far from over. Blanche, Patel, Dershowitz, and potentially others are in the queue. Millions of documents remain under review. And the central question persists: Did the people who moved in Epstein's circles get the scrutiny they deserved, or did wealth and status buy them a softer landing?
Gates called his relationship with Epstein a grave error. The graver error would be letting that be the last word.
