A shocking new book claims that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was like a “kid in a candy store” when it came to young interns at his software company, forcing executives to ban them from spending time alone with the billionaire.
A forthcoming tell-all book by New York Times reporter Anupreeta Das paints a damning portrait of one of the world’s richest men, revealing salacious details about his alleged infidelities that have “long infuriated” his wife, Melinda French Gates.
“It was not uncommon for Gates to flirt with and pursue women, or to invite employees out to dinner during his time as Microsoft’s chairman,” Das writes in “Billionaire, Geek, Savior, King: Billionaire Gates and His Quest to Shape the World.” From DailyMail.com.
The book, due for release on August 13, says the trouble began shortly after the couple married in 1994, when Gates was pining for his former girlfriend, tech entrepreneur Ann Winbladt.
According to the book, he had an unusual arrangement with his wife that allowed him to visit Winblad at their home in North Carolina once a year.
According to Das, French Gates personally reviewed her husband’s security team because he “was [she] I didn’t know he was there.”
The book also says that his wife ordered her housekeepers not to give out her husband’s direct phone number when women called.
According to Das, the geek mogul “thought his actions would have no consequences,” and ultimately wrote that the marriage ended due to “differences in views about the meaning of the marriage contract.”
According to Das, Bill Gates “believed deeply in the sanctity of marriage and truly believed that getting married would change something,” but he also believed “love and marriage often mean different things.”
The billionaire is also said to have drawn attention to young women working at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to Das, Gates “engaged in affairs with several interns at the Gates Foundation, putting them in the awkward position of having to think about their career prospects while avoiding the advances of their superiors.”
“Once, a colleague berated someone for sending a 22-year-old intern alone into Gates’ office, saying, ‘She’s too young and too beautiful,'” Das writes in his book.
Gates’ approach to women was considered “more clumsy than predatory,” people who witnessed it firsthand told Das.
A former Microsoft executive said Gates did not “prey on” women or ask them for sexual favours in exchange for career advancement.
“He’s not Harvey Weinstein… I don’t know of any actual circumstances where anyone gained anything from sleeping with Bill,” the former executive told Das.
The executive added that the 68-year-old Gates had displayed “a certain naivety in his interactions with women who mistaken passionate conversation for mutual interest.”
Crucially for French Gates were allegations that her husband was close to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who met with notorious financier Bill Gates on multiple occasions after Gates pleaded guilty to facilitating sex with minors.
The couple divorced in 2021, and French Gates left the foundation earlier this year to start his own philanthropic company.
The Post has reached out to French Gates through Pivotal Ventures for comment.
A spokesman for Bill Gates slammed Das and her book.
“This book contains wildly sensationalized claims and outright falsehoods that rely almost entirely on second- and third-hand hearsay and anonymous sources and ignores the actual documented facts that our firm provided to the author on multiple occasions,” a representative for Gates’ firm said in a statement provided to The Washington Post.
“Mr. Gates has previously expressed deep regret for meeting with Mr. Epstein solely to discuss his philanthropic activities.”
