Bill Gates admits to having affairs with Russian women, says friendship with Epstein was 'huge mistake'

Bill Gates pictured with an unknown woman in a photo from the Epstein files.

Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates confessed to employees of the Gates Foundation that he had affairs with two Russian women while he was still married to his ex-wife Melinda. The admission came in a town hall event with employees on Tuesday, with Gates adding that he considers his longtime friendship with the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to have been a "huge mistake."

Gates insisted to employees that he never engaged in any criminal activity with Epstein, The Wall Street Journal reported. "I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” he said at the meeting, but the software mogul finally came clean about affairs, which have been previously reported by some media outlets. He also acknowledged having flown on Epstein's private jet. 

“I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities,” Gates confessed at the town hall. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported on Gates' affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova, a woman he met at a bridge tournament in 2010 and later paid tuition for her to attend software school. 

Antonova was in her 20s and Gates was in his 50s when the affair began, according to The New York Post.

Bill Gates pictured with an unknown woman in a photo from the Epstein files.

Melissa French Gates filed for divorce from Bill in 2021, citing his philandering and ties to Epstein. Numerous photos of Gates pictured alongside women whose faces have been redacted have surfaced since the Justice Department began releasing the Epstein files late in December. 

“It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein,” Gates said on Tuesday. "I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made," an apparent reference to Gates having introduced other executives at his foundation to the notorious sex offender.

Gates began his friendship with Epstein three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to a sex crime in 2008. In addition to his ties to Epstein, Gates came under fire in the U.S. for his aggressive and even authoritarian approach to the COVID vaccine during the pandemic.