Re Epstein/ Gates:
The two men became friends as they worked on a health fund for billionaires with Gates even calling Epstein ‘my buddy’.
Epstein’s outrageous lifestyle was an ‘adventure’ for nerdy Gates who chafed at his overscheduled life married to a wife committed to monogamy, Das writes.
Emails between the two men even referred to Gates visiting one of Epstein’s homes for ‘Big Macs’, which some took to mean young girls.
Gates, 68, denies most of the accusations in the book, saying Das relied ‘almost exclusively on second- and third-hand hearsay and anonymous sources’.
In a statement to DailyMail.com, he added: ‘The book includes highly sensationalized allegations and outright falsehoods that ignore the actual documented facts our office provided to the author on numerous occasions.
‘Mr. Gates has previously stated his deep regret for ever meeting with Epstein, who he met with for discussions regarding philanthropy only.’
But Das’s book puts a fresh spotlight on his relationship with Epstein, which is seen as having cost him his marriage to Melinda French Gates.
Melinda only met Epstein once in 2013 and told her husband he was ‘evil personified’ but Gates inexplicably carried on seeing him anyway.
While the world saw the Giving Pledge in 2010 as an extraordinary gesture by the world’s two richest men, Epstein just saw another lucrative opportunity.
Das, 46, writes that Epstein saw that much of Buffett’s money would be distributed through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and ‘began to tunnel a way into (Gates’s) orbit’.