Bill Gates on Tuesday apologized to staff at his charitable foundation for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and for engulfing them in the scandal surrounding the late convicted sex offender, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Microsoft co-founder reportedly admitted to first meeting Epstein in 2011, three years after the disgraced New York financier’s conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.The billionaire continued to socialize with Epstein despite being aware of an “18-month thing” that curbed Epstein’s travel and the misgivings of his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, the Journal reported him saying at the Gates Foundation’s town hall event.He called his decision to spend time with Epstein a “huge mistake.”“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” the billionaire insisted of his relationship with Epstein, per the report.Gates is also said to have told staff he had affairs with two Russian women while married to French Gates.“I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities,” he told staff.The affairs are pertinent to the Epstein scandal as the sex criminal knew about the infidelities. The Journal reported in 2023 that Epstein appeared to use information about Gates’ affair with a Russian bridge player to threaten him.A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation said that Bill Gates, left, “took responsibility for his actions” over ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Associated PressGates has come under fresh scrutiny after appearing repeatedly in the latest Justice Department documents on Epstein.Among the fresh tranche of files are messages Epstein sent to himself that reference a Gates “marital dispute” and “illicit trysts.”At the town hall, Gates denied spending “any time with the victims” of Epstein’s sex trafficking schemes.According to the Journal report, Gates apologized for bringing foundation executives into meetings with Epstein.“I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” he said, according to the newspaper.A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation told HuffPost that Gates “took responsibility for his actions” in the meeting.“This was a scheduled town hall with employees, which Bill does twice a year,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “In the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI and the future of global health.”“In the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions,” they added.Close