Bill Gates is responding after an email in newly released documents related to the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed the Microsoft billionaire contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) from “Russian girls.” “These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false,” a spokesperson for Gates, 70, said in a statement to People published on Saturday, January 31. “The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.” Taylor Swift Shows Off New Engagement Ring at College Football Game On Friday, January 30, the Department of Justice published more than 3 million new documents of the so-called “Epstein Files” in compliance with the recently passed Epstein Files Transparency Act. The files, emails and other documents related to the federal investigation into Epstein included a July 18, 2013, email titled “Bill,” alleging that Gates had been seeking treatment for an STI. “To add insult to the injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda [French Gates], and the description of your penis,” Epstein’s email reportedly read. Related: Newly Released Epstein Photos Feature Donald Trump, Woody Allen and More The email appeared to be written for Boris Nikolic, a former Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation chief advisor for science and technology who resigned in 2014. “In my role as his right hand man I have been asked and wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and have been repeatedly asked to do things that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal,” one email reportedly reads. “From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trysts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall for bridge tournaments, as I am a medical doctor, but have no prescriptions writing ability.” Jeffrey Epstein Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images In 2019, a spokesperson for Nikolic denied the physician and biotech venture capitalist had any business ties with Epstein, Bloomberg reported at the time. Gates, for his part, has previously discussed his regret over his previous relationship with Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while in jail on child sex trafficking charges. “In retrospect, I was foolish to spend any time with him,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal in a January 2025 interview. “So yes, I think I was quite stupid. I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that it was just a huge mistake.” Gates went on to say that the controversies surrounding Epstein prior to his 2019 arrest and subsequent death in August of the same year have made him more cautious about meeting new people now. “Definitely,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I mean, are you kidding?” Related: Giants Co-Owner Steve Tisch Breaks Silence After Appearing in Epstein Files In 2022, Gates’ ex-wife cited his alleged relationship with Epstein as one of the factors that led to their divorce. “It’s not one thing, it was many things. But I did not like that he’d had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein,” she told CBS Mornings at the time. “I made that clear to him.”
