Bill Gates covets one thing his billions can’t buy: a Nobel Peace Prize. As part of his quest, he even has a team of staff dedicated to making him appear a “lovable, nerdy philanthropist,” according to a new book.
It’s also why he befriended Jeffrey Epstein. It’s just another secret, writes Anuprita Das in her new book, Billionaire, Geek, Savior, King: Billionaire Gates and His Quest to Shape the World, out August 13.
“To boost Mr. Gates’s bid for the big prize, some in his entourage have launched a public relations campaign just as the world is approaching a public health milestone involving the Gates Foundation,” wrote Das, a finance editor at The New York Times.
According to the book, the 68-year-old Microsoft co-founder, whose net worth is estimated at $153 billion, now employs more than 20 people at his company, Gates Ventures, who work to “constantly shape, monitor and hone the Gates aura in the media and mold its positive aspects into a consistent, approachable brand.”
His team is said to be “constantly” trying to counter the long-standing image of him as “an awkward, sometimes robotic guy who doesn’t easily connect with audiences.”
Das writes that Epstein “began digging a tunnel around Gates” in 2010, around the time Gates and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett launched The Giving Pledge, a campaign in which he pledged to give away 99% of his fortune.
The two became friends and, through JPMorgan, helped set up donor-advised funds that gave members of the wealthy anonymity to spend their donations. Gates called Epstein his “buddy.”
Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring underage girls for prostitution, seemed eager to clean up his own image and knew how to get Gates’ attention: He told a Gates Foundation employee he could help the billionaire win a Nobel Prize for his work to eradicate polio.
In 2013, Epstein, Gates and Terje Roed-Larsen, the leading Norwegian diplomat who helped negotiate the Oslo Accords, flew to Strasbourg, France, to meet with Thorbjorn Jagland, then chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
Despite this, the Nobel Prize was not awarded. Rod Larsen, who ran the International Peace Institute in New York, was forced to resign in 2020 after it was reported he had received money from Epstein to support his own research.
Emails seen in MIT’s investigation into Epstein’s ties to the school included “references to Gates visiting Epstein’s residence and Epstein arranging a ‘Big Mac,’ which one person said was a reference to Epstein’s interest in young women and a food he was known to serve on occasion.”
Gates denies most of the allegations made in Das’ book.
“This book contains highly sensationalized claims and outright falsehoods that ignore actual documented facts that have been provided to the author by authorities on multiple occasions,” Gates said in a statement to The Washington Post.
A representative for Gates recently told the Daily Mail: “Mr Gates has previously said he deeply regrets meeting with Mr Epstein solely to discuss his charitable work.”
Nevertheless, the book argues that Gates’s relationship with the disgraced Epstein has caused “significant damage” to his public image.
Gates’ ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, with whom he has three adult children, approved of the friendship. It was the reason for divorce In 2021, she told Gayle King, “I didn’t like the fact that he was meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. No, I made that very clear to him.”
She revealed that she met the convicted paedophile trafficker “just once” because she wanted to know what the man was like.
“I regretted it the moment I opened the door. He was an abomination – the devil incarnate,” she added.
The book also details Gates’ alleged infidelity, which Das writes “long-resented” Melinda.
After splitting with Melinda after 27 years of marriage, Gates’ spokesman acknowledged that he had had an affair with a staffer about 20 years ago. Das is the plural form of adultery.
The book also alleges that Gates behaved like a “kid in a candy store” toward young interns at Microsoft, leading management to forbid them from being alone with the billionaire.
“It was not uncommon for Gates to flirt with or pursue women, or to make unwanted advances, such as inviting employees to dinner during his time as Microsoft’s chairman,” Das wrote.
According to the book, Melinda revamped her husband’s security team because they “wanted to make sure that her husband was safe.” [she] I didn’t know he was there.”
She also ordered the couple’s housekeepers not to give the husband’s direct phone number when the women called the house, and forced her husband to hire a new assistant.
Gates’ approach to women was seen as more “clumsy than predatory,” according to people who witnessed it firsthand.
He “had 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,” Das writes, “a colleague reprimanded someone for sending a 22-year-old intern into Gates’ office alone, saying, ‘She’s too young and too beautiful.'”
Microsoft executives told Das that Gates did not “prey on” women or ask for sexual favours in return for improving his career prospects.
“He is not Harvey Weinstein…I am not aware of any actual circumstances under which anyone gained anything from sleeping with Bill,” the former executive wrote in the book.
The executive added that Gates displayed “a certain naivety in his interactions with women who mistaken passionate conversation for mutual interest.”
But “news about his personal conduct has also tarnished his image and alienated his closest friends. [fellow billionaire Warren] “Mr. Buffett,” the book says.
Das said Gates He is currently dating Paula Heard.“As social media draws falsehoods and distorted truths into the mainstream, they are also the subject of conspiracy theories about vaccines and the intentions of those in power.”
“The boy genius who transformed from ruthless monopolist to philanthropist has morphed again, and this time, Gates’ image is darker, blurrier and more divisive.”
And not all of his money is being used for the benefit of society as a whole.
The book claims that when the rerouting of Highway 106 cut Gates’s vacation home in Hood Canal, Washington, in two, the billionaire “reportedly paid the state of Washington more than $2 million to build a special tunnel under the rerouted highway to connect him to his vacation home. The tunnel is patrolled by armed guards.”
