By Emily Glazer

May 30, 2026 9:00 pm ET

The billionaire philanthropist was once ranked the world’s most admired man—but the revelations of his Jeffrey Epstein ties are eroding efforts to burnish his reputation

Bill Gates’s carefully cultivated public image has been shattered by revelations about his association with Jeffrey Epstein, leading to increased scrutiny.

Bill Gates’s employees have spent years carefully cultivating his image—down to keeping a custom-size mannequin to test his outfits for different days of the week.

A styling group stores troves of neutral tone crew and V-neck sweaters, button-down shirts, slacks and extra pairs of the Silver Lining Opticians “Carbon” glasses at an off-site building, current and former employees said. Once options are selected for public-facing engagements, employees usually send three options for approval by senior staff. The goal: to depict someone calm and approachable, like Mister Rogers.

That kind of attention to detail—part of efforts by a staff of dozens who handle his and his empire’s communications—helped burnish Gates’s profile as a brainy billionaire who successfully traded his Microsoft monopolist past for the soft-knit glow of a global philanthropist. His Gates Foundation, one of the largest in the world, with an $89 billion endowment, has paved the way on global health and development efforts, including in the fight against childhood mortality and infectious diseases. Gates ranked at the very top of a 2019 survey of public figures that people look up to—ahead of the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis.

His carefully crafted image has been shattered as more details of Gates’s association with the late Jeffrey Epstein have spilled into public view, challenging prior efforts by the 70-year-old to downplay his relationship with the sex offender. In a February town hall with foundation employees, Gates owned up to two affairs with Russian women referenced in Epstein’s emails.

Some people familiar with the matter said they heard about his admission to staff with disbelief: In his divorce proceedings, allegations related to more than 20 affairs had come up.

Justice Department files show that Gates met with Epstein multiple times despite concerns from his then-wife, that Epstein knew about some of Gates’s extramarital relationships and that two of Gates’s close advisers had exchanged hundreds of messages with Epstein for years up until 2019, the year he died.

Fallout from the revelations about Gates’s behavior is now eroding efforts to protect his reputation. Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, was recently snubbed from the company’s annual CEO summit and from the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, which he has attended for years.

Two different polling teams—at the Gates Foundation, and his private office, Gates Ventures—for years have closely tracked opinions about Gates, including on favorability, trustworthiness and inspiration. A media analysis prepared for the Gates Foundation found that there had been a more than 40% increase in “critical news narratives” about Gates and the foundation since the Epstein files were released through February, according to internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

One chart highlighted large global news cycles following three events: after Melinda French Gates talked about Epstein in an interview, after Gates pulled out of a tech summit in India and, later, after he addressed his ties to Epstein at the town hall with foundation employees—noting it was a continuation of the “negatively framed news.”

Gates and his lieutenants had claimed for years that his relationship with Epstein was strictly about philanthropy and that women weren’t present during his meetings with Epstein. The Justice Department files revealed a more complex picture: Epstein traveled with and introduced Gates to the head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee; Epstein was involved in negotiations between Gates’s employees and Gates himself; and Gates posed for photos with Epstein and the women around him before or after some of their meetings.

A Gates spokesperson said he wasn’t involved in any illegal activities with Epstein and acknowledged it was a mistake to have met with him. “Gates has apologized for that mistake and is voluntarily speaking with the House Oversight Committee early next month to answer questions about his interactions with Epstein. Gates supports the release of all the Epstein files in hopes the victims can get the justice that they deserve,” the spokesperson said.

A Gates Foundation spokesperson said in a statement: “The harm Epstein inflicted on women and girls was horrific, and the foundation regrets having any employees interact with him in any way.”

A spokeswoman for French Gates declined to comment.

Amid internal unrest about the new revelations, the foundation told employees it had opened an external review into its ties with Epstein. Next month, Gates will face questioning before a congressional committee over his dealings with the sex offender.

His team tapped lawyer John Moran, a Republican former Justice Department official, to represent Gates. The team successfully pushed the voluntary questioning back a few weeks and secured an agreement to keep his appearance off video.

Some committee members plan to ask Gates about emails in the Justice Department files that Epstein had sent to himself, according to people briefed by their staffers. The emails alleged that Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted disease and asked about antibiotics to surreptitiously give to his now-ex-wife. A spokesperson for Gates previously said the 2013 emails “are absolutely absurd and completely false.”

In the February town hall with foundation employees, internally known as “BG Unplugged,” Gates addressed the Epstein ties with a mix of contrition and defiance. He acknowledged it was a mistake to meet with Epstein and the situation was the “opposite of the values of the foundation.”

He acknowledged the two affairs with Russian women and photographs that showed him with redacted faces of women whom Gates described as Epstein’s assistants. “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” he said. Gates said the women weren’t in the meetings and he didn’t talk with them. Sitting in the front row was his girlfriend Paula Hurd, one of his sisters and Larry Cohen, the longtime CEO of Gates Ventures and his right-hand man.

Epstein’s death and a Netflix special

Employees around Gates have spent years carefully cultivating his portrayal to set him apart from his combative years fighting antitrust charges while leading Microsoft, according to internal documents and Gates employees.

The team closely curates his online presence to attract social-media followers and subscribers to his blog, Gates Notes. One highlight years ago was a viral YouTube clip of Gates and his billionaire pal Warren Buffett picking up a shift at Dairy Queen.

The 2019 survey ranking him as the world’s most admired man, conducted by YouGov, was cheered within Gates Ventures, the private office where a number of staffers work to manage his public image—from what Gates says to the sweaters he wears.

The ranking “is quite fantastic and reflects the hard work and creativity of this team,” Cohen, the Gates Ventures CEO, wrote in an email reviewed by the Journal. It showed “strong perceptions and attitudes of and towards Bill and the work we’re all doing.”

Cohen, along with other individuals who work for Gates, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In the summer of 2019, Epstein was arrested and died in jail. His death raised questions about his elite network, and some of his connections with powerful people, including Gates, began to emerge.

That September, Netflix released a documentary, “Inside Bill’s Brain,” that offered a glowing, intimate look at his philanthropic second act. In an interview that month with the Journal about the documentary, Gates was asked about his Epstein association.

Gates replied: “I met him. I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him…. There were people around him who were saying, hey, if you want to raise money for global health and get more philanthropy, he knows a lot of rich people. Every meeting where I was with him were meetings with men. I was never at any parties or anything like that.”

The next month, Cohen hosted a staff meeting for the private office to discuss media reports of Gates’s ties to Epstein. Cohen, according to attendees, told staff that while it looked bad, Gates’s connection was limited to philanthropy.

After the meeting, some attendees said they felt the executive team was prioritizing message control over transparency.

Gates later said he met multiple times with Epstein from 2011 to 2014, including meetings at his New York townhouse and in Florida, Seattle and Europe.

Divorce and another Netflix special

Gates’s ties to Epstein erupted again in 2021 when he and French Gates were going through a divorce. The Journal reported that one source of tension was his wife’s concerns about Gates’s dealings with Epstein, concerns that dated as far back as 2013.

In 2023, the Journal reported Epstein had discovered that Gates had an affair with a Russian bridge player and later appeared to use his knowledge to try to blackmail Gates. “Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,” a spokeswoman said at the time.

Behind the scenes, the Gates team was preparing for another Netflix series which described him as a “tech visionary and global health and climate philanthropist.” While the project was pitched to staff as an independent documentary, internal records reveal involvement by the Gates machine.

Gates Ventures executive Ian Saunders in January 2024 shared a nine-page document with the production team after Gates and Cohen had viewed episodes. While Gates was “quite positive” about them, he also shared concerns for each of the five episodes, Saunders wrote in a memo.

Among the feedback Saunders shared:

“We all strongly ask again that you change the sour look Bill has on his face at the end shot.”

“Some of the people in this episode have to go completely.”

“Small design point but it seems odd that Bernie Sanders’ ID is ‘over’ Bill.”

Gates and Cohen did a “marathon viewing” of the episodes before the series launched, according to another document Saunders wrote. Saunders then relayed six main points of feedback with the staff involved in the documentary, including from Tremolo Productions.

They suggested the team film more “of Bill, of others” and do more editing. “We could keep Tremolo whole or more than whole if more financing is required—we don’t want cost to be a reason not to ‘keep going,’” according to the memo.

Spokespeople for Netflix and Tremolo said they had no knowledge of Gates or his team paying for any part of the documentary. The Netflix spokesperson said Netflix retained final cut and creative approval of the series.

When the project was finished, a Gates Ventures executive was listed as a producer on the project, to the surprise and dismay of members of the documentary team, according to people familiar with the matter. The series was called “What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates.”

The Netflix spokesperson declined to comment on the producer credit.

DOJ files released

If the 2024 Netflix documentary was an attempt to look ahead, the Justice Department’s trove of Epstein files would soon dig up the past. The Justice Department files included more than 1,000 emails connecting back to Gates, the foundation or people who worked for him.

Frustrations began to mount internally. Mark Suzman, a foundation veteran who took over as CEO in 2020, held a town hall for employees in early February, days after the files were released. Gates wasn’t present.

Several employees asked questions about Gates’s ties to Epstein, attendees and others briefed on the town hall said, including one who asked Suzman to help her understand what she and others should say to their foundation partners.

Suzman told employees that he felt “somewhat sullied” by any association of Epstein tied to the foundation and that the association made the foundation’s mission more challenging. Multiple people were seen crying in the audience.

Suzman was presented with two final questions: one regarding Epstein ties, and another asking who would win the Super Bowl. Suzman launched into a detailed explanation of his support for the New England Patriots while balancing it with his years in Seattle. He then briefly responded to the Epstein question.

“The Gates Foundation remains focused on its mission to help improve lives in the US and globally; to advance that mission, our Chair, CEO and Board remain fully engaged in the work ahead,” the foundation spokesperson said in a statement.

Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2026.

Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman. Mike Blake/Reuters

Internally Gates’s team realized the situation surrounding their leader was unlikely to subside, even as they continued spending billions on their work on issues such as eradicating malaria and polio and reducing maternal and child mortality. Nonprofits still sought Gates Foundation money, especially since federal funding dried up, but the prestige of the foundation had been diminished. World leaders and nonprofit executives were wary of having engagements with Gates. Even Microsoft was pulling away.

Gates usually hosts a dinner at his home in Washington state tied to the tech giant’s annual CEO summit. Weeks before the May event, though, his team received word it would be better not to do it this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

“While it didn’t work out this year, we’ve already extended an invitation for Bill to attend the CEO Summit next year,” a Microsoft spokesman said.

Ahead of a trip to India in mid-February, the Epstein ties were causing angst for foundation staff. Ankur Vora, an executive who oversaw the trip, and the India country lead, Archna Vyas, posed questions to colleagues about the trip and whether it should happen.

Gates first traveled to Vijayawada, a city in the southeast, where he stepped off the plane and greeted officials who presented him with colorful scarves representing different regions. Officials also posed with him while presenting large flower assortments. Gates then traveled to Mumbai and ultimately to New Delhi, where he planned to deliver a keynote speech at an AI conference attended by heads of state and tech leaders.

Days before Gates’s keynote, his name wasn’t appearing in certain “key attendee” searches on the conference website. Indian government officials told local news agencies that his invitation was being reviewed given his appearance in the Epstein files.

Around that time, the Gates Foundation’s India office tweeted: “Bill Gates is attending the AI Impact Summit. He will be delivering his keynote as scheduled.”

Gates was stationed at the Oberoi, a hotel in New Delhi, known for its symmetrical staircase and a “Tree of Life” sculpture in its lobby. He waited to receive word if he should attend a dinner with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Emmanuel Macron and business leaders, government officials said. Those who attended were part of the AI summit.

Gates did not end up attending the dinner. Vyas later received word from the Indian government that it would be better if Gates wasn’t part of the summit since the heightened Epstein news would take away from the AI focus. The Indian government left it to Gates and his people to communicate the change.

Hours before Gates was slated to take the stage, the foundation tweeted: “After careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities, Mr. Gates will not be delivering his keynote address.”

Several days later, back in Seattle, Gates explained to staff what had happened at the foundation’s town hall. “I think they had, you know, some notion of feeling that way and it would have taken away from the summit,” he explained. He called it a “mutual agreement.”

Suzman and other foundation leaders decided to pull Gates out of a South Africa trip in the works, according to an internal document.

Messy March

In early March, a House committee investigating the Epstein case sent letters to Gates and other high-profile Epstein associates seeking their testimony. The next week, Gates’s nuclear power company TerraPower was engaging in its own form of reputational damage control.

On March 9, TerraPower gave employees three days’ notice of a virtual all-hands meeting, without saying why, according to an internal document. Usually the company gives staff weeks’ notice.

During the meeting, CEO Chris Levesque reiterated Gates’s talking points. Levesque told employees to expect to hear more about Gates’s ties to Epstein in the coming months given the upcoming congressional questioning. He acknowledged receiving employee concerns through an anonymous program, managers and human resources on the matter, which he described as “troubling.” He also told staff that he had talked to Gates’s private office and “it is clear it doesn’t involve TerraPower.”

“There’s no connection to any TerraPower activities, even the two affairs that Bill had to share with the broader public, and his regrets on those, had nothing to do with TerraPower,” according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by the Journal. He encouraged employees to stay “mission-focused.”

Several current and former employees found that confusing—and privately talked to each other about how it wasn’t true. One of the women Gates had referred to having had an affair with—a “Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities,” he had said in his foundation town hall—was closely tied to TerraPower.

She worked at TerraPower from 2010 to 2012, according to her LinkedIn page, and her name was even in TerraPower’s internal system. She had been featured in a 2011 magazine article about her TerraPower work, including a photo shoot with Gates and TerraPower Vice Chair Nathan Myhrvold, a longtime Gates confidant.

One TerraPower executive later told some employees who had raised concerns that the woman had been employed by TerraPower’s parent company. To some employees, the executive’s explanation was a semantic shield, a technicality used to protect the Gates brand.

TerraPower and the woman didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Gates spokesperson said he did not have “an inappropriate relationship with any employee of TerraPower.” A person familiar with the matter said the brief affair occurred after she worked at TerraPower.

In late March, Gates was noticeably absent from CERAWeek, the energy industry’s premiere gathering in Houston. In previous years, Gates was a marquee speaker at the conference as the founder of both TerraPower and Breakthrough Energy, a climate-investment firm.

The CERAWeek organizers, in fact, had discussions with Gates’s team about him speaking but ultimately decided, given Gates’s heightened Epstein ties, it wasn’t the right time for him to take the stage.

Gates participated at his own smaller event, the Breakthrough Energy Ventures Investor Summit, where a Breakthrough executive interviewed him. Gates held court at the Four Seasons hotel, meeting with some partners and investors a few blocks away from the CERAWeek event.

Breakthrough Energy has been trying to raise several hundred million for a new fund but has run into fundraising challenges, people familiar with the matter said. Some investors cited having concerns about Gates’s Epstein ties and the group’s shift away from climate work.

“Our community of investors continues to grow, and we have never been more optimistic about the future of our firm and the companies in which we invest,” a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson said in a statement. “Our investors are excited about our pipeline of companies.”

Gates is gearing up for his congressional appearance on June 10, with staff helping him to prepare, according to people familiar with the matter. Among the topics likely to be discussed: No allegations of affairs between Gates and foundation employees have been made and no formal complaints have been made.

But the script is beginning to falter, even among some of those closest to the billionaire.

While top foundation executives were gathered for an off-site meeting in Kenya, Gates’s longtime friend Buffett surprised them with televised comments about Gates and Epstein on March 31.

The legendary investor had been one of the foundation’s biggest supporters and had pledged to make annual gifts throughout his lifetime. But he stepped down as a trustee in 2021 after the announcement of the Gateses’ divorce, and in 2024 he told the Journal that the Gates Foundation had no money coming from him after he dies.

In the March CNBC interview, Buffett said he hadn’t spoken with Gates since the Epstein files had been released. The 95-year-old said he wanted to wait and see what more he learned from the Epstein files before making his annual decision on giving in late June.

In early May, Gates didn’t attend the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the company Buffett led for decades where Gates had been a board member until 2020. While he wasn’t barred from attending, some people advised Gates not to go. It was the first time he didn’t attend in many years.

Just a few weeks later, Gates welcomed members of the Giving Pledge, the organization he co-founded with Buffett and French Gates, at an annual gathering in Ojai, Calif. Notably absent at the retreat: the other two co-founders.

A Giving Pledge spokesperson said attendance varies year to year and declined to comment on individual attendance.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5870239&forum_id=2).#49908514)

the sacklers otoh, odd case.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5870239&forum_id=2).#49908755)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5870239&forum_id=2).#49908803)