In a document dump that reads like a fevered screenplay by a gin-soaked hack, Bill Gates' deposition on his ‘friendship’ with the late, lamented (except by no one) Jeffrey Epstein has landed with all the grace of a blue whale doing a bellyflop. The Microsoft Messiah, it transpires, shared more than just investment tips with the convicted sex offender. They bonded over ‘science philanthropy’ and, presumably, a shared appreciation for the finest unnamed islands money can buy.
Gates admits to attending Epstein’s townhouse more often than a pigeon on Trafalgar Square. He claims his relationship was purely professional, a claim that strains credulity further than a budget airline seat. The man who brought us Clippy now reveals he clipped his own judgment, meeting with Epstein ‘multiple times’ for dinners, strategy sessions, and what can only be described as a masterclass in poor PR.
One particularly juicy nugget: Gates talked to Epstein about a ‘proposed partnership’ for global health. Yes, the man who gave us Windows Vista wanted to team up with the man who gave us underage trafficking. It’s like asking a vampire to run a blood bank. The deposition, taken in 2021 as part of a civil suit, unfurls like a tragicomic opera of hubris. Gates, ever the robot in a human suit, maintains he saw Epstein as a useful conduit to the super-rich. ‘A nice man who liked to talk about big things,’ Gates labelled him. Big things indeed: islands, jet planes, and the systematic exploitation of vulnerable girls.
Then there are the emails. Hundreds of them, spanning years. In one, Epstein invites Gates to a dinner with a Russian model. In another, he offers to create a $2 million trust for the Gates Foundation. Perhaps the most damning: Gates asks Epstein to review a business proposal. The man with the golden goose asking the goose-stepping pervert for advice. It’s a portrait of terminal naivety so profound it makes Boris Johnson look like a scholar of nuance.
But the real howler? Gates says he didn’t understand Epstein’s ‘agenda’. As if the man’s agenda wasn’t tattooed in neon over every front page from here to Port-au-Prince. ‘I thought he was a thoughtful guy,’ Gates blithers, a line that will live in infamy alongside ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ and ‘Trust me, I’m a curate’.
This deposition is not a revelation. It is a confirmation. A confirmation that the global elite operate in a bubble so sealed, so hermetic, that the stench of Epstein’s crimes was apparently nothing more than a bad eau de cologne. Gates emerges not as a villain, but as a figure of tragicomedy: the world’s richest man, too blinkered to see the monster in the room, too insulated to question why a convicted sex trafficker would offer to help humanity.
In the end, the only new thing here is the confirmation that Bill Gates is, was, and always will be, a spectacularly poor judge of character. A man who can code a billion lines but can’t spot a predator at ten paces. The deposition is a monument to the wilful blindness of the super-rich, a blindness that costs more than mere money. It costs a damn. And in this case, it cost a whole lot more than that.
