Front Burner - Bill Gates’ Epstein connections

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

For decades Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates built a public persona as an unrelenting, tech visionary – and later as a global health and climate philanthropist. But that reputation has started to fracture, largely because of one man: Jeffrey Epstein.The partial release of the Epstein files revealed extensive communication between Epstein and Gates, his foundation, and people who worked for him. On Wednesday, Gates testified before congress in a closed door hearing. In his opening statement, he said that he “never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct”. He was unequivocal that he has never victimized anyone.Today, guest host Aaron Wherry, speaks with Emily Glazer, a Pulitzer prize winning enterprise reporter with The Wall Street Journal who's been covering Gates and his connection with Epstein for years.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Erin Werry in for Jamie Quasso. At Microsoft, I worked night and day, and that was how I made sure Microsoft's data had. I could be so extreme. You never understood the first thing about this. Microsoft hit a new record high on Wall Street. That's from a trailer for Inside Bill's Brain, a glowing Netflix series from a few years ago

about Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Gates became famous as an unrelenting tech visionary and later built a reputation as a global health and climate philanthropist. But that reputation has started to fracture, largely because of one man, Jeffrey Epstein. The partial release of the Epstein files revealed extensive communication between Epstein and Gates,

his foundation and the people who work for him. In his opening statement, he said that he, quote, never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct, unquote. And he was unequivocal that he has never victimized anyone. Emily Glazer is a Pulitzer Prize winning enterprise reporter with the Wall Street Journal. She's been covering Gates and his connection with Epstein for years. Emily, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. So Bill Gates is obviously a household name.

As I mentioned, he's had this reputation as a tech visionary and philanthropist. I don't think anyone would argue that he has accomplished really significant things, both with Microsoft, one of the world's biggest tech companies. Our first big contract was in 1975. And you were what, 20? 21. Yeah. Are you kind of half telling me, though, that you're not in it for the money?

I don't think any one of the company's in it for the money. It's a much more exciting field than trying to measure exactly how much we're selling or how much it's worth. The creation of these programs is something you can sit down and see. people enjoying and solving real problems. And more recently with the Gates Foundation, one of the world's largest philanthropic organizations. It's all about great primary health care, taking care of pregnant women, taking care of young kids, and adding great new tools. We're at a crossroads, and we're asking people to step up and remain committed to all of humanity, especially its children.

And some of this portrayal or the effort that's gone into his image, I take it is a response to the reputation he had essentially before the Gates Foundation came to prominence. Absolutely. So let's go back in time a little bit. Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in the 70s. He became more of a household name in the 80s. And then in the 90s, he, really became famously known when he took the stand for this big antitrust trial, and he was defending Microsoft and was very combative and defensive. There were a lot of, I do not recalls, in there. What were you thinking when you wrote the sentence? I don't remember specifically writing the sentence. Does that mean you can't answer what you were thinking when you wrote the sentence?

That's correct. Okay. So since that question is that you don't have an answer to you don't have an answer to that question. Let me put a different question. No, I have an answer. The answer is I don't remember. Okay. It was kind of became this image of him as this monopolist.

And his team, there are dozens of staff that handle his and his empire's communications. They have worked really hard over the years. You know, he left, he was no longer CEO of Microsoft around 2000. Around that time, he and his wife, Melinda French Gates, started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. and they really work to trade that monopolist image of the past with Microsoft for someone who would then become more of a global philanthropist. I've learned that success depends on knowing what works and bringing resources to the problem. We know what to do. The generosity we are asking for can save millions of lives. someday in the future, all people, no matter where they are born, will be able to lead a healthy life.

You know, sweaters, Mr. Rogers, S, calm, approachable. And that's what they have been working on for a number of years. And it brings us to, like, the Bill Gates that many of us now know more recently. Yeah. And his reputation now has taken a real hit since the connections between him Epstein have been made public, what do we know about how they met? Well, we know now a lot more than we used to know. So first, I do want to say, it has been known for several years that Bill Gates had ties to Jeffrey Epstein. What's changed in the last couple of months is just how deep those ties

were and that the things that Bill and his team had been saying for years were not the full truth. And like that has largely been exposed as it has for a lot of other powerful people where we now have all these emails and documents that have been released by the Department of Justice starting late in 2025 and into this year. So what we now know is that Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein met in 2011. Bill Gates actually said in his congressional, his opening statement to congressional, members in early June just recently, that he was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein, and these are his words, quote, through people I trusted in my professional and philanthropic work. We know that to be two of his longtime associates at the Gates Foundation, who both ended up working in his private

office for a time, Boris Nicolich and Melanie Walker. And those were two of his closest confidants, and he worked with them for many years, and it turns out they also had extremely deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Just to go back a bit, in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. And that date is notable because Gates started his relationship with Epstein, as you say, after that, not before. Gates hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing, and he hasn't, and he has said that he

wasn't aware of Epstein's illegal activities, but he did reportedly tell the oversight committee this week that he was aware of the 2008 conviction. How has he justified his choice to still connect with Epstein? Well, he also has told the Gates Foundation employees in a town hall earlier this year that with Epstein, he was aware of some, quote, 18-month thing that had limited Epstein's travel, but that Bill Gates didn't properly check his background. And of course, he's profusely apologized for this now over and over again. Bill Gates has said time and again that his ties to Epstein were focused strictly on philanthropy. And that is how he has justified it so much over the years. He said that Epstein had a network of all these extremely wealthy people

and that they were trying to create this fund. It was a donor-advised fund. It was a donor-advised sometimes known as a DAF that would be philanthropic and it would be global and they were going to work with J.P. Morgan and they were going to do all this great philanthropic work and raise all this money. So that was how it was justified publicly. What we know now from obviously these DOJ files as well as a lot of reporting we've done is that their ties went much deeper. Jeffrey Epstein, traveled with and introduced Bill Gates to the head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Jeffrey Epstein was involved in negotiations between Gates's employees and Gates himself, when some of them exited in different ways.

And Bill Gates posed for photos with Epstein and the women around him before, after some of their meetings. And those are photos where the women's faces have since been redacted. And there's a lot more as well, but it was not just philanthropy. be. Building relationships with rich and powerful people was Epstein's MO, as we know, that we also regularly communicated with scientists, academics, and tech leaders. But Epstein seemed particularly focused on getting close with Gates. Do we know why or what was in this for Epstein, essentially? I'm going to speculate for just a moment, and then I'm going to give you a better answer. You mentioned, you know, his interest in science and scientists and academics, and then

And also, of course, we know he was very interested in, like, the wealthy and powerful. And Bill Gates is both of those. So I feel like he hit this very sweet spot and was a unicorn in some ways because Bill Gates, by definition, is like a technologist. He's an inventor, an innovator. He's entrepreneurial. He's also deeply interested in science and does all this work with the Gates Foundation to try to eradicate infectious diseases.

And he, you know, over the years has founded a nuclear. power company and he does climate investing work. So he's doing all this stuff that has some tie back into science in one way or another. At the end of the day, though, to truly answer your question, Jeffrey Epstein traded on Bill Gates's name and name dropped him all the time because Bill Gates in many ways is like the pinnacle of the top. You know, he isn't a CEO anymore, but he's one of the world's wealthiest people. He's extremely powerful and influential. You know, for years, for decades, he could demand meetings with world leaders. And what I heard from my sources is that these world leaders would come to him on his schedule at his location. You know,

that's usually not the case. And people really almost treated him like he was a world leader in himself. It's like he had this mini government of sorts. And I think that that was extremely appealing to someone like Jeffrey Epstein who had regularly mentioned gates and emails. We see this now, whether he was meeting with him or not. He just made it seem like they were very close and that he had access. Let's see if Toronto advisors know their group insurance providers. Who has extensive expertise in both traditional group benefits and special risk solutions? Beneva. Beneva. Beneva. Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well.

You're stronger with the right partner. Have you ever wondered how clean the seats on the TTC are? I found, like, chicken bones or, like, bedbogs. Or why so many Toronto restaurant bathrooms are in dank basements? Sometimes it's the most sketchy things. Like, when you go down, it's like, what is this? I'm Hayden Waters, a reporter and producer on the podcast, This is Toronto. From breaking down Doug Ford's obsession with the island airport,

we have to bring Jets in. To being inside an iconic Toronto strip club in its final hours. We go beyond the headlines of the day and get to know Toronto in all its big, beautiful, frustrating, warty, fascinating glory. So find and follow us, this is Toronto, wherever you get your podcast. Earlier this week, some of your colleagues at the Wall Street Journal reported about a woman named Melanie Walker, who had worked at the Gates Foundation and who had close ties with both men. Can you tell me more about her and how she fits into all this?

Yes. So there are really two people that are the tie-in between Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates. one of them is this guy Boris Nicolich and the other is this woman, Melanie Walker. Both of them worked at the Gates Foundation for years and both of them then spent time working at his private office, which is called Gates Ventures. Melanie Walker is the one that really goes far back with Jeffrey Epstein. He had been a mentor to her, had supported her and advised her for nearly three decades. What my colleagues reported is that Melanie Walker has told several people that she met Jeffrey Epstein, and Donald Trump at the Plaza Hotel in the early 1990s after she graduated with honors from the University of Texas. And in a 2018 email introducing a neurosurgeon to Epstein, she even wrote, quote,

I've known Jeffrey 28 years, and this isn't a joke, Donald Trump introduced us, end quote. And she, along with this guy Boris Nicolich, helped ingratiate Jeffrey Epstein into Bill Gates's world after that 2008 conviction that you mentioned. And in his opening statement to Congress, Gates said he cut off contact with Epstein in 2014, but was drawn back into a negotiation with him years later because of an employee. What's your read of that? He's referring there, I believe, to Boris Nikolich. What's fascinating is that I've poured through these DOJ files.

And, you know, if you know to look for other people's names besides Bill Gates, you start to uncover this trove of fascinating information. And so back in late January, I believe it was January 30th when the DOJ released this batch of files that included all this information about Bill Gates and people close to him. It included a bunch of these emails and other documents where it shows that Jeffrey Epstein helped arrange for Bill Gates to invest in a biotech fund that was started by this guy, Boris Nicolich, one of Gates. his longtime top advisors and that he had also dangled allegations about Bill Gates's extramarital affairs when he was putting this deal together. And so this was back in 2013. This whole correspondent shows that Gates agreed to ultimately invest tens of millions of dollars into a venture with Boris Nicolich as he was leaving Bill Gates's private office and that Epstein really inserted himself into those negotiations. You also reported in February of this year that Gates revealed to staff at the Gates Foundation that he had participated in two affairs.

Can you explain the significance of those revelations? Absolutely. So Bill Gates has this town hall internally known within the Gates Foundation as BG unplugged. It was a previously scheduled town hall, but it happened to be really interesting timing because it was just a couple of weeks after that batch of DOD. J-Files were released that had a lot of information about Bill and other people close to him and Jeffrey Epstein. So a ton of employees are sitting in the atrium of the Gates Foundation's Seattle headquarters. Sitting in the front row is Bill Gates's girlfriend, Paula Hurd, one of Bill's sisters, and Larry Cohen, the longtime CEO of Gates Ventures and Bill's right-hand ban. And Gates, you know, is basically like bearing his soul and really getting personal with his employees. And he acknowledges,

you know, right from the beginning, the chief communications officer of the Gates Foundation says they're going to be talking about Jeffrey Epstein and asks for context as to why Bill's name appears in the files. So he acknowledges these two affairs with Russian women that were referenced in Epstein's emails. And what I found to be very interesting from reporting on this and then talking to sources after is that we had been aware, we had actually, the Wall Street Journal reported on one of those affairs

back in 2023. It was a Russian bridge player. And then we knew there were other women. And we knew the number was more than two. And so it was like a little surprising that he was kind of bearing his soul and just mentioned two affairs. And some people familiar with the matter

that I spoke with and that we later reported said when they had heard about his admission to staff, There was almost like shock and disbelief because it turns out in Bill Gates's divorce proceedings, there were allegations relating to more than 20 affairs that had come up. Right. And there's also that Gates claims, if I understand correctly, that Epstein used his knowledge of his affairs along with what Gates calls, quote, many lies that he layered on top, unquote, to try to exert pressure on him. How does that claim line up with what we see in the Epstein? documents. Well, we know even back in 2003 that Epstein was trying to blackmail Bill Gates by making one of these affairs, the one with the Russian Bridge player, public. And we can see through these emails that Epstein refers to the affairs on different occasions and certainly appears to threaten Bill Gates. So that does line up. And but Epstein absolutely leveraged these

different relationships that he had with people. And he learned things about Bill Gates' his personal life and then was trying to leverage them. So following on the revelations of Gates ties to Epstein, there's obviously been wider fallout, despite the fact that Gates has not been accused of any wrongdoing and he's made clear that he didn't know about Epstein's illegal activities. We've seen world leaders reportedly become more hesitant to be seen with Gates. Speaking engagements have been impacted and some distance seems to have been put between him and Microsoft. How much has this association with Epstein damaged Gates' ability to operate as a

philanthropist, as a public figure, as a power broker? And do you think that damage is still growing? Well, this is so much of what I was looking into earlier this year. And what we exclusively reported is that he's actually been snubbed a number of times that were not known. So I want to travel back to February and Bill was in India. Some of this became public at the time. He was in India to make this big keynote address at an India AI summit had traveled across the world to get there. And there was this back and forth, basically, where, you know, his name suddenly wasn't appearing in certain keyword searches of attendees on the website. And in local media reports, Indian government officials are saying that his participation is under review because of the Epstein ties.

And then the Gates Foundation tweets like Bill will still be participating. And then what we reported is that he was stationed at the O'Broy Hotel in New Delhi, kind of waiting to see if he would attend this dinner with Prime Minister Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron and other business leaders. And that the people who were going were part of the summit. And then ultimately he didn't go. And ultimately the Indian government officials told his team it was just too much of a distraction to have him there. And so he had to pull out and pretty important. We also report that this huge energy conference in Houston called Sarah Week, that the organizers had had discussions with Bill's team about him giving a marquee speech. And that was in late March. And ultimately, the organizers said, you know what, this just isn't a good time. We know then that in early May, Bill usually attends the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting. His longtime friend Warren Buffett had run that company. Bill had served on the board. And Bill didn't attend for the first time in a number of years. And we were told that some people,

advised him not to go. Technically, he was not disinvited, but he was told it would not be a good idea to go. And then the last one, which I think is the most burning one, the most telling one, is that Bill for years has hosted this special exclusive dinner as part of Microsoft's annual CEO summit. They invite CEOs of some of the biggest companies and other business leaders to Bill's compound in the state of Washington. They host this ultra-exclusive dinner. And weeks before the event, Bill's team was told, we're not going to, you're not going to do it this year. Not a good time to do it. So as you could see, it's this cascading effect.

And that really gets us to May because this hearing and the deposition, the congressional deposition is in June. And it's just all leading up to that. And people from different parts of the world and different sectors are just kind of saying, you know what? It's just not a good time. You're kind of like tainted right now. And is it, this is maybe asking you to speculate a bit, but is it possible? that these snubs are just temporary, or is there a sense that this is a long-lasting problem for him? What I know from sources is that they, in different aspects of his empire, different companies,

they're acting like it's business as usual. But I know that there's this inner circle that has been furiously preparing for the hearing, hoping that things will return to normal afterwards. And it's just too early to say. I know that there are some trips that have been postponed. I know that they've been really like slowing down on any kind of outward facing appearances. And so this summer will be an interesting test if he's going to get back out there. And I think we'll just have to keep our eyes and ears open. But I know at least from talking to sources that I don't think there's going to be some immediate switch that's going to pop back on and act like everything is returned to normal because this is interwoven into his story now.

He can't get out of it. He had to testify in front of law. Like, that is a such a big deal that his team built a replica of the exact room that he would be answering questions in so that he could prepare and not mess up. So on Wednesday, Gates testified before the House Oversight Committee as part of the committee's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Glad to be here voluntarily to testify to help of the committee's work. I'll start with an opening statement in the hearing room. I hope my testimony is helpful to the important work of the committee to find justice for the victims. This was done in private behind closed doors. But what do we know about the expectations around it? Was there something in particular the committee is trying to get at? Is there something the committee is particularly pursuing here?

So since Bill Gates did go involuntarily, he did have some privileges afforded to him. You mentioned it was obviously closed door hearing, so it wasn't videotaped. They were able to push it back a couple of weeks to be flexible with his schedule, and that also, of course, gave him time to prepare. And we know that the House Oversight Committee has been questioning a number of people, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, about Epstein. More recently, the U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and we know that the billionaire Leon Black and the departing Goldman Sachs General Counsel, Catherine Rumler, are also scheduled to appear before the committee in the coming weeks. So they're very much focused on trying to figure out all these different ties that Jeffrey Epstein had, trying to understand if there's any wrongdoing. They are trying to figure out and get to the bottom of this because there are so many documents released and there's so much information and it's difficult to piece it together trying to figure out who else is involved. We know now, you know, Bill Gates publicized his opening statement, and then the Democratic lawmakers held a press conference halfway through.

Representative James Comer, the chairman of the committee, had a gaggle right before it started. You know, everyone's kind of like talking about it more now. And it sounds like the most interesting information to come out of this is that, you know, Bill Gates did acknowledge that he was around people who were abused. He shared names of other people in Epstein's circle that the lawmakers seem to be interested in speaking with, including former Harvard president Larry Summers, who left his teaching role at Harvard and has been known to have ties to Epstein. And, you know, there were questions about whether Bill Gates is going to be treated is just sort of like a VIP person and wealthy or if there's kind of more to it and, like, if he's going to be punished for his actions or if there is anything to punish. And we didn't really get an answer on that necessarily. Some people, some of the lawmakers said he was combative, but overall we heard he was pretty cooperative.

Sort of to tie this all together, I want to come back to where we started, to Gates and the power of his reputation. Because in his statement to the oversight committee, Gates said, quote, In the work I do, reputation is the basis for developing partnerships that save lives. meeting with Epstein was a grave error in judgment and put this work at risk. You know, according to its own accounting, the Gates Foundation has spent more than $100 billion on charitable support globally over the past 25 years, including hundreds of millions on malaria and tuberculosis prevention. So when we step back, what is the Epstein connection meant not only for Gates' legacy, but for the Gates Foundation and the work it does?

I don't think it's black or white. There's no doubt. that Bill Gates has done so much incredible work that has impacted the world. You mentioned some of the spending. The Gates Foundation has worked to eradicate infectious diseases. They're working on maternal health and trying to reduce childhood mortality. They're doing a lot of development, agriculture, and otherwise in Africa and other parts of the world. There is a lot of good they do.

And I think part of what was so jarring, and for a number of the current and former employees in his empire that I've talked to, is that they're often so mission-based that to have their founder be dragged into this over and over again. And all the stuff about his personal life and Epstein getting into the personal life and just kind of like questions about Gates's character and his morals and his ethics are questioned. And that that's also an overhang over his reputation and also the work that. the foundation does, the work that his nuclear power company, Terra Power does, his climate investment firm, breakthrough energy, even the investments that his private office Gates Ventures does. So I don't think that diminishes that work, but I think it makes it really tricky to just have

this golden reputation going forward. I don't think we're going back to the pre-20206 version of Bill Gates. And I'm not quite sure. what the future version of Bill Gates looks like. I think that is going to be a little bit determined by him and how truthful he is going forward. This has all been really interesting. Thanks very much, Emily. Thank you.

That's all for today. Frumperner was produced this week by Matthew Amha, McKenzie Cameron, Bridget Stringer Holden, Kevin Sexton, Mia Johnson, Kieran Audson, Kieran-Odhaw, and Kristen DeJagger. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shappison. Our senior producers are Imogen Burchard and Elaine Chow.

Our executive producer is Nick McCabe Locos. I'm Aaron Wary. Thanks so much for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.