As Gates’ Epstein connection unnerves staff, his foundation looks for a way forward | Fortune

The transfer got here regardless of the Gates Foundation confirming as just lately as Tuesday that Gates can be attending the occasion. When requested for remark, the group advised Fortune Gates didn’t give the keynote tackle “to make sure the main focus stays on the AI Summit’s key priorities.” As a substitute, the Gates Foundation was represented by Ankur Vora, president of its Africa and India places of work. “The Gates Foundation stays absolutely dedicated to our work in India to advance our shared well being and growth objectives,” the group stated.  

Gates’s abrupt determination follows renewed scrutiny of his connection to Jeffrey Epstein. The U.S. Division of Justice launched emails final month that includes Invoice Gates’s identify within the Epstein information, sparking new questions on Gates’s involvement with the late financier and convicted intercourse offender. The emails recommended that Gates and Epstein had a number of conferences after Epstein’s launch from jail in 2009, with conversations centered on Gates’s philanthropic objectives. The information have impressed a few of these related to Gates to make clear the extent of his relationship with the late financier and convicted intercourse offender.

Gates’s point out within the newest batch of Epstein information has reportedly precipitated rumblings inside The Gates Foundation. At a city corridor on Feb. 5, the foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, advised employees he was unsettled by the emails. “I really feel considerably sullied by simply any affiliation of Epstein with the work we do,” Suzman stated, in keeping with Monetary Instances. The remark got here after employees had raised issues in regards to the potential injury Gates’s affiliation with Epstein, significantly of their conversations surrounding the philanthropic group, might have on the group.

A continued philanthropic mission

Gates stated final 12 months the foundation would spend $200 billion over the subsequent 20 years after which shut by 2045 as a part of the billionaire’s plan to present away most of his wealth. In 2010, Gates signed onto The Giving Pledge, a marketing campaign launched by Gates, his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, and former Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, encouraging the world’s richest to commit nearly all of their wealth to charitable organizations.

The billionaire stays a main philanthropist, with an $86 billion footprint spanning greater than 130 international locations. This 12 months, the group established a record-breaking $9 billion annual payout. Whereas the foundation will proceed to deal with international well being, it has additionally dedicated to growing the budgets of a number of applications, together with ladies’s well being and AI schooling within the U.S.

Gates has additionally taken steps to shrink his actual property footprint. Property information present the billionaire has put up a $4.8 million, four-bedroom dwelling in Medina, Wash., that sits adjoining to his Xanadu 2.0 mansion on Lake Washington. Over three many years, Gates has developed the world across the property, which has an appraised worth of roughly $132 million as of 2025.

Gates has additionally made a vital cost to his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates. In 2024, Invoice gave almost $8 billion as a part of a beforehand reported settlement that he would give $12.5 billion following their introduced cut up in Could 2021. The donation was made to Melinda’s charitable group, Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, which she began in 2022.

Other than his deliberate look on the AI Summit, Gates has made few public appearances for the reason that newest batch of information had been launched final month. One in every of his solely public appearances got here earlier this month in an interview with 9 Information Australia, the place he expressed remorse about his relationship with Epstein. “Each minute I spent with him, I remorse, and I apologize that I did that.”