Bill Gates speaks out over his inclusion in latest Epstein files release: ‘I regret every minute I spent with him’

Bill Gates has spoken out about his inclusion in the three million-page tranche of the Jeffrey Epstein files, saying he regrets every minute he spent with the late pedophile.

Draft messages from 2013 saved in Epstein’s email account appeared to document feelings of betrayal between himself and the Microsoft co-founder.

“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false,” Gates said in his first interview since the latest file were released last Friday.

“I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that.”

Gates said he first met Epstein in 2011 and they had several dinners together over the following three years, but said he never visited Epstein’s island.

“The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end,” he said. 

He added that he was “foolish to spend time with him” and is “one of many people who regret ever knowing him”.

“The more that comes out, the more clear it will be that, although the time was a mistake, it has nothing to do with that kind of behaviour.”

It comes after Melinda French Gates, his ex-wife, earlier spoke out about being mentioned in the latest batch of the files, and recalled some “very, very painful times” in her marriage to the Microsoft founder.

“But I have moved on from that. I purposely pushed it away and I moved on,” she told NPR.

“I’m in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life, so whatever questions remain there of what… I can’t even begin to know all of it. Those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”

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