Bill Gates was seen cheering on Team USA in women’s Olympic gymnastics as a new book detailing his ties to Jeffrey Epstein came to light.
The 68-year-old Microsoft founder was seen wearing a black T-shirt and holding a navy and red American baseball cap as he intently watched the women’s artistic gymnastics team final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Tuesday.
Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee led Team USA to its first Olympic gold in artistic gymnastics since 2016, when the Americans easily defeated their rivals.
In the new biography, Billionaire, nerd, savior, king: Bill Gates and his mission to shape our worldNew York Times Journalist Anupreeta Das writes that Gates was once the “brightest star” in Epstein’s orbit, but became a target for the late pedophile after their short-lived partnership collapsed.
Epstein had set his sights on Gates in 2010 when he and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett launched The Giving Pledge, a charity campaign under which they pledged to give away 99 percent of their wealth.
Bill Gates, 68, was seen wearing a black T-shirt and holding a navy and red American baseball cap as he intently watched the women’s artistic gymnastics team final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Tuesday.
Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee led Team USA to its first Olympic gold in artistic gymnastics since 2016, as the Americans easily beat their rivals. (pictured: U.S. women’s artistic gymnastics team)
For Epstein, his charitable initiative was a potential new “way to make money” and restore his public image, according to the book.
This would allow Epstein to whitewash his reputation after his 2008 conviction for pimping underage girls, which led to a short prison sentence and made him a registered sex offender, the book claims.
In the volume, which is scheduled for release on August 13, Das writes that Epstein then began “working his way into Gates’ orbit” with spectacular results.
The new biography, Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World, will be released on August 13
The two men became friends while working at a healthcare fund for billionaires, with Gates even calling Epstein “my friend.”
Epstein’s scandalous lifestyle was an “adventure” for the nerdy, married Gates, Das writes.
Emails between the two men even made reference to Gates visiting one of Epstein’s homes to buy “Big Macs,” which some interpreted as a reference to young girls.
Gates denies most of the book’s allegations, saying Das relied “almost exclusively on second- and third-hand hearsay and anonymous sources.”
In a statement to DailyMail.com, a spokesperson for Gates added: ‘The book includes highly sensational allegations and outright falsehoods that ignore the actual documented facts that our office provided to the author on numerous occasions.
‘Mr Gates had previously expressed deep regret for meeting Epstein, with whom he had only discussed philanthropy.’
But Das’s book once again highlights his relationship with Epstein, which is believed to have cost him his marriage to Melinda French Gates. The couple split in 2021.
Bill Gates is pictured at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2011. From left: Jes Staley, then a senior executive at JPMorgan; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; Epstein; Gates and Boris Nikolic, who was a science adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gates and Epstein met on numerous occasions beginning in 2011, after he was convicted of sexual offenses. In fact, Gates visited Epstein at least three times at Epstein’s home in New York City.
Melinda only met Epstein once in 2013 and told her then-husband he was “the embodiment of evil,” but Gates inexplicably continued seeing him anyway.
While the world viewed the 2010 Giving Pledge as an extraordinary gesture by the world’s two richest men, Epstein simply saw another lucrative opportunity.
Das, 46, writes that Epstein saw that much of Buffett’s money would be distributed through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and “began to work his way into[Gates’]orbit.”
By August 2010, 40 billionaires had signed the Giving Pledge, and many turned to Gates for advice on how to give away their money.
They had no experience setting up their own foundations, but Gates did.
As a result, Das writes: “Of all the stars that dotted Epstein’s dark universe, Gates was the brightest.”
Their first meeting was in the summer of 2011, after Epstein pitched Gates on a healthcare fund for billionaires.
As talks progressed, Epstein hired JP Morgan to manage a group of “very high-profile” donors, each worth at least $100 million.
Reports at the time said Gates flew on Epstein’s plane and had at least six meetings with him, including dinners at the pedophile’s New York home.
Gates told a colleague in 2011 that Epstein’s lifestyle “is very different and quite intriguing, although it wouldn’t work for me.”
One Epstein victim, a Polish model, met Gates at his Microsoft office in Seattle and even posed for a photo with him.
The woman, who was in her 20s at the time, said she remembered people looking at her as if asking, “What are you doing there?”
According to Das, Epstein was an “adventure” for Gates and referred to him at least once as “my friend.”
In one ominous passage, Das writes that Gates “chose not to listen” to warnings about Epstein because the pedophile “might offer him something worth putting aside the risk to his image.”
Epstein spent months trying to secure the fund, but ultimately came to nothing.
The last known contact between Gates and Epstein was in 2014 and their friendship likely would not have become public had Epstein not been arrested in 2019.
One of the most embarrassing episodes of Gates’ friendship with Epstein was his affair with Mila Antonova, a Russian he met at a bridge tournament.
Epstein also met Antonova, paid for her to attend a software coding course and allowed her to stay in one of his New York apartments.
On Tuesday, Gates and his philanthropist girlfriend Paula Hurd (pictured), the ex-wife of former Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, watched as Americans celebrated his gold medal.
The team celebrated their gold medal by clutching an American flag, jumping up and down and taking time to pose for photos with fans.
Reports claim that in 2017, Epstein emailed Gates and asked him to reimburse him for the cost of the course.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “the tone of the message was that Epstein knew about the affair and could expose it” in apparent retaliation for not participating in his health fund.
In the book, Das criticizes the “Gates media machine” for its handling of the crisis.
On Tuesday, Gates and his philanthropist girlfriend Paula Hurd (ex-wife of former Oracle CEO Mark Hurd) watched as Americans celebrated their gold medal by clutching an American flag, jumping up and down and taking time to pose for photos with fans.
The team ran onto the court and couldn’t contain their excitement as they moved to various spots on the podium to give fans a chance to see them.
With Biles at her peak, the Americans’ total of 171.296 was well ahead of Italy and Brazil and was the exclamation point of a yearlong run in which Biles has cemented her legacy as the greatest of all time in her sport and one of the best in Olympic history.
The outcome — the Americans on top with the rest of the world looking up — was not in doubt from the moment Jordan Chiles began the night with her double-twisting Yurchenko vault.