US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
Around the same time, Das says, Gates was unofficially campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize for their foundation’s work toward eradicating polio. Epstein said he could help the Gates Foundation secure a win.
“French Gates sat uncomfortably throughout the dinner, and later told friends she was furious that her then-husband would not cut off ties with him,” the book says.
The former cochair of the Gates Foundation has publicly said as much about her opinion on her ex-husband’s ties to Epstein. French Gates told CBS she wasn’t happy that the pair were meeting, and she “made that clear” to Gates.
About the new book generally, a Bill Gates spokesperson told Business Insider: “Relying almost exclusively on second- and third-hand hearsay and anonymous sources, the book includes highly sensationalized allegations and outright falsehoods that ignore the actual documented facts our office provided to the author on numerous occasions.”
Gates’s office didn’t respond to BI’s request to comment specifically on this story. He has previously said he made “a huge mistake” in meeting with Epstein.
“At the time, I didn’t realize that by having those meetings it would be seen as giving him credibility,” Gates told the Times in 2022.
He added, “You’re almost saying, ‘I forgive that type of behavior,’ or something. So clearly the way it’s seen, I made a huge mistake not understanding that.”