Bill Gates Behaving Badly

Flirtations, an affair and a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein – Bill Gates’ reputation is taking a bashing as his divorce from Melinda proceeds

- Lesego Mkhize

OVER the years they’ve made much of how they fell in love at work. He flirted with her at a conference and asked her out after bumping into her in the office parking lot. She was attracted to his brain and the fact he wanted to make the world a better place.

They went on to become one of the most solid couples in the world of the uber­rich and super­famous. Which is why when Melinda Gates announced she was divorcing her husband of 27 years, it was such a shock.

The marriage was “irretrievably bro­ ken”, Melinda said (YOU, 27 May). Cue much speculation: they’d drifted apart, the kids had grown up, they didn’t have as much in common anymore.

But as the dust began to settle a whole new picture began to emerge of Bill Gates – and it isn’t pretty.

The Microsoft boss – bookish and geeky with a penchant for dad jeans – has a whole other side to him. And Melinda had clearly had enough.

An explosive report in The New York Times claims Bill had “developed a rep­utation for questionable conduct in work­related settings”. He tried to pick up women – albeit in a “non­predatory” sense – and often bad­mouthed Melinda to colleagues.

In meetings of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, their global philan­thropic initiative, he was often dismiss­ive of his wife.

In 2019 the Microsoft board received a letter from a female engineer who claimed Bill, the CEO of the tech giant, had tried to “initiate an intimate rela­tionship” with her. The board hired a law firm to probe the allegation but Bill resigned from the board in early 2020 before the investigation could be com­pleted.

His spokesperson, Bridgitt Arnold, says the investigation had nothing to do with his decision to quit.