Global Courant 2023-05-22 07:28:09
Jeffrey Epstein, right, reportedly used knowledge of Bill Gates’ affair to get him to join a failed charity fund.Lintao Zhang/Getty Images/Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images/Insider
Bill Gates had an affair with a Russian bridge player around 2010. The Wall Street Journal reports.
The woman later met Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 and he paid for her to attend a programming camp, according to WSJ.
Epstein reportedly asked Gates to pay him back for the camp in 2017, implying he would reveal the affair.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had an affair around 2010, The Wall Street Journal reports, and knowledge of the relationship was used by Jeffrey Epstein in an apparently threatening email to Gates in 2017.
Epstein sent the email after several failed attempts to get Gates to join his effort to create a large charitable fund with JPMorgan, the report said.
The affair was between Gates and a Russian woman named Mila Antonova, then in her 20s, around 2010 after the two met through tournaments for the bridge card game, the Journal reported on Sunday. The magazine also found one YouTube video from 2010 in which Antonova talks about her passion for bridge and mentions meeting Gates at a national bridge tournament.
Antonova later met Epstein around 2013 when she was trying to get funding for a company, BridgePlanet, that would like to grow and teach others about the game she loved, the Journal reported. Antonova, who LinkedIn says is now a software engineer, told The Wall Street Journal that she was unaware of Epstein’s crimes when she pitched to him and others about her company, which happened about five years after his 2008 guilty plea and jail time for recruiting and obtaining a minor for prostitution, requiring him to register as a sex offender.
“I just thought he was a successful businessman and wanted to help,” Antonova told The Journal. “I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did.” Antonova did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment before publication.
“Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes,” a spokeswoman for Gates told the Journal. “After Epstein repeatedly failed to lure Mr. Gates out of these matters, Epstein unsuccessfully tried to use a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates.” A spokesperson for Gates’ charitable foundation did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment before publication.
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After attempts to fund her company failed, Epstein paid Antonova to attend a programming camp so she could do other work in software development, according to the Journal.
Epstein met Gates several times from 2011 together with several others remarkable figures like Woody Allen and Noam Chomskyand has a spokesperson for the tech billionaire previously said Gates only met with Epstein because he was described as someone who was interested in helping Gates’ philanthropic endeavors grow, and now regrets ever associating with Epstein.
At Epstein different transactions And connections with JPMorgan Chasethat are the subject of a pending lawsuithe reportedly tried to create a huge charitable fund that he hoped would make Gates a primary investor. The Journal reported that in several emails and messages to JPMorgan executives, he portrayed his relationship with Gates as a close personal relationship, which Gates’ spokesperson disputed, as they said Epstein misrepresented his relationship with Gates.
After failed attempts to get Gates to join the fund over multiple meetings, the effort reportedly fell apart. A JPMorgan spokesperson told the Journal that the bank “didn’t need Epstein” as a client or his introductions, and that, “Knowing what we know today, we wish we had never done business with him.” A spokesman for JPMorgan referred Insider on Sunday to what the bank already told The Journal.
In 2017, Epstein emailed Gates requesting reimbursement for the cost of Antonova’s coding camp classes, implying that he knew about Gates’ infidelity and was willing to expose it, people close to the situation reported to the Journal. Gates reportedly never paid him, and it’s unclear if the two dated after the 2017 email.
Epstein died in 2019 in a New York prison following an investigation of the Miami announces revealed dozens of other victims accusing him and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, both were prosecuted criminally.
Epstein’s death in prison was ruled a suicide, and Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison last June for her role in the trafficking and abuse schemes.
You can read the full report on Epstein’s email to Gates at The Wall Street Journal.
Read the original article Business Insider
