Jeffrey Epstein Threatened to Expose Bill Gates’ Affair: Report
The Microsoft co-founder reportedly hooked up with a Russian bridge player after they met at a tournament in 2010
Jeffrey Epstein threatened to expose an affair between Bill Gates and a Russian bridge player if he wasn't reimbursed for the cost of sending her to software coding school, the Wall Street Journal said Sunday.
The late pedophile emailed Gates in 2017 and asked him to pay the cost of lessons for Mila Antonova, years after her relationship with the Microsoft co-founder ended, sources familiar with the matter told the Journal.
People who've seen the email said it implied Epstein would reveal the affair if Gates didn't maintain an association with him, the Journal said.
The move reportedly followed efforts by Epstein to convince Gates, who's worth an estimated $114 billion, to donate to a charitable fund Epstein tried to establish with JPMorgan Chase.
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A Gates spokeswoman said, "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."
Antonova declined to discuss Gates, 67, and said she was unaware that Epstein had served a 13-month sentence for prostitution charges – one involving a teenage girl – when they met in 2013, the Journal said.
“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.”
She added: “I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did.”
Antonova said she asked Epstein to invest in a planned bridge-related, online business but when it didn't pan out, she decided to become a software programmer and asked several people to lend her money to attend coding boot camp.
“Epstein agreed to pay and he paid directly to the school. Nothing was exchanged. I don’t know why he did that,” she said. “When I asked, he said something like, he was wealthy and wanted to help people when he could.”
Epstein, 66, committed suicide in a Manhattan federal prisonin 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges involving dozens of girls as young as 14.
In 2010, Antonova posted a video on YouTube that featured a photo of her posing with Bill Gates, with whom she said she played bridge after meeting him at a tournament.
“I didn’t beat him but I tried to kick him with my leg,” she said in the video.
Gates has said that bridge became one of his favorite hobbies after he learned the game from his parents, according to the Journal.
In May 2021, Gates and then-wife Melinda Gates announced that they were ending their 27-year marriage, saying that “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives."
A divorce petition filed by Melinda Gates was granted three months later.
The New York Times has reported that Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions dating to 2011 and visited the financier's Manhattan at least three times.
In March 2013, the two men also met at the Strasbourg, France, home of Thorbjørn Jagland, then chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee and Epstein scheduled a meeting with Gates, Jagland and others at his townhouse for the following September, the Journal reported.
Gates' spokeswoman said, "Our documents show that Mr. Gates met with Norwegian officials to discuss the security situation in Afghanistan as part of Mr. Gates’ work on polio eradication.”
"Mr. Gates has never been focused on or campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize, or any other prize," she added.
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