The U.S. House Oversight Committee on Tuesday released the transcript of a closed-door interview in which Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates answered lawmakers’ questions about his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Gates sat for the voluntary interview on June 10 in Washington, D.C., as part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into Epstein and his crimes.
In a statement Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for Gates said he appreciated the chance to appear before the House Oversight Committee and, as several committee members acknowledged, answered every question put to him over the nearly six-hour interview.
“With the full, unredacted transcript now publicly available, everyone can review the details for themselves,” the statement continued, reiterating that Gates “supports the full release of the files and hopes the Oversight Committee’s investigation will lead to justice for the victims.”
See the full transcript here and below, and continue reading for a summary of key points.
Bill Gates Transcript – U.S. House Oversight Committee by GeekWire
Meetings with Epstein
Gates described his association with Epstein as “one of the larger mistakes I’ve made,” saying he was foolish to spend time with him and that their interactions, from 2011 to 2014, were a “complete dead end.”
He said Epstein “certainly wasn’t a friend,” and that he declined Epstein’s social invitations — including to Epstein’s island — as Epstein tried to deepen the relationship.
Asked how often he saw Epstein, Gates gave this breakdown: three times in 2011, twice in 2012, and “five or six” times in each of 2013 and 2014, noting some of the 2013 contacts were Skype calls. He described the meetings as generally substantive rather than social.
Gates said that when he first met Epstein, at a January 2011 dinner in New York arranged by his former science adviser Boris Nikolic, he was aware Epstein had been convicted of a sex-related crime but had not looked into the specifics, acknowledging he “probably should have.”
He said it was not until 2018, when the Miami Herald detailed the extent of Epstein’s crimes, that he grasped their scope and learned Epstein had registered as a sex offender.
Gates said the primary reason he met with Epstein was Epstein’s claim that he could raise billions of dollars for global health from wealthy clients — money that never materialized. He acknowledged he also dealt with Epstein over a separate matter, the exit of his adviser Nikolic.
Gates said he was surprised to learn from the released files how extensive Nikolic’s own relationship with Epstein had been, and that reports Nikolic was named in Epstein’s will surprised him “a lot.”
He said he never witnessed Epstein engage in any sexual misconduct, was never offered any young women or girls, and never visited Epstein’s island, ranch, or Florida home.
He did acknowledge he “may have been in the presence of victims,” citing Epstein assistants he was photographed with and two who sat in the front cabin during a private New York-to-Palm Beach flight he took with Epstein — the one time, he said, that he flew with him. Gates said it was not Epstein’s 727, and he didn’t know who owned or chartered it.
Gates said neither he nor his representatives ever asked any victim to sign a nondisclosure agreement, secured any settlement, or held NDA discussions with victims or their lawyers regarding Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Epstein associate who was convicted in 2021 of helping him sexually abuse underage girls.
Gates testified that Epstein flew to Seattle and visited his Gates Ventures office for a meeting focused on Nikolic’s departure — an encounter the committee dated to Aug. 8, 2013. Gates called it “kind of a worthless meeting.”
The next day, Gates emailed that Epstein had been “quite helpful,” but he told the committee he only “went along with the narrative” to close the deal, insisting Epstein’s involvement actually accomplished nothing.
Gates acknowledged making a $2 million donation to MIT during the period he knew Epstein, and said he told Epstein about it hoping to end Epstein’s requests that Gates give money in his name. He said MIT later investigated and found the gift was not Epstein-related.
He acknowledged three extramarital affairs — with a competitive bridge player, a nuclear scientist, and a doctor — and said Epstein had become aware of two of them, apparently through Nikolic.
However, Gates said, “I was not blackmailed,” characterizing Epstein’s notes as “emails to himself” that mixed true and false information and that he said he did not see until the Justice Department released the files. He allowed that the drafts looked like Epstein’s “brainstorming” heading toward blackmail.
Microsoft connections
Gates said the name Epstein “never came up” in his conversations with former Windows chief Steven Sinofsky, and that he learned of Epstein’s reported dealings with Sinofsky only through the press this year. (Sinofsky has declined to comment on the revelations and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.)
Regarding other Microsoft-connected figures, Gates said he never discussed Epstein with former CTO Nathan Myhrvold, though he had a “vague awareness of some connection” beforehand.
(Documents released in 2025 included an apparent letter and other materials from Myhrvold in Epstein’s 2003 “birthday book.” A spokesperson has said Myhrvold knew Epstein from TED conferences and as a donor to scientific research, doesn’t remember the letter, and regrets that he ever met him.)
As for LinkedIn co-founder and Microsoft board member Reid Hoffman, Gates said Epstein “may have come up” in conversation, that he’d had some prior awareness of a link through “some MIT connection,” and that both Hoffman and Epstein attended his final meeting with Epstein, a December 2014 breakfast. Hoffman has said he deeply regrets interacting with Epstein after his conviction and has called for full release of the files.
Other items
Rep. Lauren Boebert pressed Gates on Epstein’s interest in eugenics, transhumanism, and genetic engineering, asking whether Epstein ever discussed “genetic ambitions,” “population engineering,” or CRISPR-related DNA research with him, or tried to tie any of it to the Gates Foundation’s work. Gates said none of it ever came up and that Epstein had no influence on those initiatives.
At another point, pressed on whether he would support higher taxes on billionaires, Gates said he has paid “over $14 billion” in taxes and that the U.S. “has to find a way of taxing very rich people at a far higher level,” including himself.
Defending his foundation’s work, Gates said GAVI’s vaccine purchasing is “the primary reason childhood death has gone from 10 million a year down to below 5 million a year.” Separately, Gates said the foundation’s work “will be the focus the rest of my life.”
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