- At Tuesday's Gates Foundation staff meeting, Bill Gates admitted to two past affairs with Russian women and denied they were connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.
- Gates said he met with Epstein from 2011 to 2014, flew on his private jet and met internationally, believing Epstein could help raise funds, but later called the relationship a “huge mistake.”
- One affair involved Russian bridge player Mila Antonova, whose financial struggles were discussed in emails between Epstein and foundation adviser Boris Nikolic, who appears extensively in Justice Department records.
At Bill Gates’ biannual meeting with his foundation’s staff on Tuesday, the Microsoft co-founder addressed his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In an audio recording obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Gates acknowledged two affairs he’d had with Russian women but said they were not victims of Epstein. “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” he said.
He added, “To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him.”
Gates said he began meeting with Epstein in 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. At the time, Gates said he knew of some “18-month thing” that made it so Epstein couldn’t travel.
He said his relationship with the convicted sex offender continued through 2014. In those three years, Gates flew with Epstein on a private jet and spent time with him in Germany, France, New York and Washington, D.C. However, Gates said he “never stayed overnight” or visited Epstein’s private island.
In their conversations, Gates said Epstein would talk “about the kind of intimate relationship he had with a lot of billionaires, particularly Wall Street billionaires.” Gates told his staff he believed Epstein could help raise money for their causes.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein” and introduce him to his executives, Gates added. “I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made.”
Who were the two Russian women?
Gates told his staff about his affairs on Monday. “I did have affairs, one with (Mila Antonova), a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities.”
An adviser to the Gates Foundation, Boris Nikolic, allegedly told Epstein about Gates’ affairs.
On the Fourth of July in 2013, Epstein wrote an email to Nikolic that seemed to reference the affairs: “Bill risks going from richest man to biggest hypocrite, melinda a laughing stock, pledges will disappear as a result.”
The email then named two women Epstein had affairs with and said they “risk(ed) becoming overnight sensations.”
Gates allegedly met the bridge player in 2010, when she was in her 20s and he was 55. After Epstein met her in 2013, he offered and paid for her tuition at a software coding school.
From emails reaching the late 2010s, the bridge player, Mila, stayed in contact with Nikolic, who relayed her information on to Epstein.
“Mila had emailed me a couple times over the past two months,” Nikolic told Epstein in an email from mid-2017. “After I sent her that note, she said she had little money, couldn’t afford air conditioner, was living on a friend’s couch (and) really needed money. !!!!”
Without specifying an amount, Nikolic said he sent Mila some money and mentioned that TV personality Sharon Osborne had been in contact with her as well.
“She is ok but broke. That story would take Trump off the front pages. The richest man in the world is so cheap, his former bridge girl and toy lives on a friend’s sofa,” he wrote Epstein.
Nikolic’s name shows up in the Justice Department’s dataset more than 14,500 times.
Larry Summers resigns from Harvard over texts with Epstein
Harvard University announced on Wednesday that Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury Secretary who served under Bill Clinton, will resign from teaching at the end of the school year.
The Justice Department’s newly released Epstein files include hundreds of references to Summers and show the pair communicating about women and finances right up until Epstein was arrested in the summer of 2019.
Summers consistently asked Epstein for advice about how to pursue women. At the same time, the economist has been married to a Harvard literature professor, Elisa New, since 2005.
One exchange from April 24, 2019, shows Epstein advising Summers with what to text a woman he had offered to help with an academic paper.
Their iMessage conversation shows Epstein telling Summers, “Strong is not mean. You are matter of fact. ‘I gave you a chance you blew it off. I get it. It took me awhile because I had such strong feelings. But it is sinking in. Im sure your paper will be just fine without my input.’” Epstein messaged again, “HAD. Strong feelings. Past tense. She will respond.”
A few messages later, Summers said, “Call me.”
In 2020, Harvard investigated Epstein’s ties to the school and made one explicit reference to Summers. It found that Epstein had envisioned and helped Summers found a new program, per The New York Times.
Files show Steve Bannon helping Epstein until his arrest
For months leading up to Epstein’s arrest, former White House strategist to President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon sent messages on which lawyers the sex offender should use and how to revive his image.
He advised Epstein in April, 2019, “First we need to push back on the lies; then crush the pedo/trafficking narrative; then rebuild your image as philanthropist.”
Several months later, on June 25, 2026, Epstein sent Bannon a Miami Herald headline that said federal prosecutors had allowed his plea deal to stay in place.
Bannon responded, “Dude!!!!! Is this real Tell me this is real.” When Epstein said it was, Bannon responded, “Epic epic epic.”
Following the files’ revelations, Bannon defended his relationship with Epstein to The New York Times as strictly professional.
“I am a filmmaker and TV host with decades of experience interviewing controversial figures. That’s the only lens through which these private communications should be viewed — a documentary filmmaker working, over a period of time, to secure 50 hours of interviews from a reclusive subject," he said.
In 2025, The New York Post reported that Bannon had 15 hours of footage for the documentary, “The Monsters: Epstein’s Life Among the Global Elite.” Bannon has refused to release the entirety of his footage.