Bill Gates ‘wanted Epstein to help him win Nobel prize’

Microsoft mogul thought convicted sex offender ‘would know the right people or some kind of way to massage things’, former employee claims.

Bill Gates attended meetings with Jeffrey Epstein because he hoped that the financier and convicted paedophile might help him to win a Nobel peace prize, it has been claimed.

The allegation was attributed to a former member of staff at the Gates Foundation and follows a report by a Norwegian business newspaper that Gates and Epstein travelled to Strasbourg in 2013 to meet a Norwegian former prime minister who was then chairman of the Nobel committee.

A representative for Mr Gates said that a Nobel prize “would certainly be a great honour” but denied that the Microsoft founder had “campaigned for it in any way” and said that he would have rejected any assistance from Epstein.

Mr Gates’s meetings with Epstein have faced heightened scrutiny after the announcement two weeks ago that the billionaire and his wife are to divorce.

Meetings after Epstein served time

Reports that Gates had met Epstein after the latter had served a prison sentence in Florida for sexual offences involving a minor came to light in the summer of 2019, after Epstein took his own life in a Manhattan jail. As attention turned to Epstein’s time in New York following his release from jail in Florida in 2009, it became clear that he had sought to re-establish himself in New York society, hosting parties, offering financial advice to at least one Wall Street tycoon and offering donations to Nobel prizewinning academics.

In 2019 a spokesman for Gates said that “multiple high-profile people” had suggested that Gates meet Epstein because he might have been able to help raise money for his charitable foundation, “based on his status as an agent and adviser to wealthy individuals with respect to their giving strategies”. However a source identified as a former staff member for the Gates Foundation has alleged that a Nobel peace prize was also motivation, The Daily Beast reported.

People knew Epstein not ‘squeaky clean’

“He [Gates] thought that Jeffrey would be able to help him, that he would know the right people or some kind of way to massage things so he could get the Nobel peace prize, which is what Bill wants more than anything in the world,” it quoted the former worker as saying. “We were aware of things that were potential reputational risks for the foundation. Even back then, people knew this guy [Epstein] wasn’t squeaky clean. I think [Gates] was ultimately disappointed it didn’t work out.”

Epstein ‘pursued Gates aggressively’

The Norwegian newspaper DN Magasinet reported in October that Gates and Epstein had visited Thorbjorn Jagland, head of the Nobel committee at the time, at his property in France in March 2013. “They came to my residence with their respective delegations,” Jagland told the newspaper. “Bill Gates and Epstein arrived together, followed by the others.”

At the time Gates was said to have been mentioned as a possible candidate for a Nobel for his foundation’s work in trying to eradicate polio. Jagland said that the meeting was not improper because Gates was not nominated.

A representative for Gates said: “Gates met with Epstein and others multiple times to discuss philanthropy and the work of his foundation. Although Epstein pursued Gates aggressively, Gates had absolutely no business partnership or personal friendship with Epstein. Gates never socialised with Epstein or attended parties with him. Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognises it was an error in judgment to do so.”

The Times