Bill Gates’s Carefully Crafted Image Is Cracking

0:05In the months since the Justice Department released the so-called Epstein files, some powerful people have lost their jobs and their credibility as a result of their relationships with him. But for a long while, it seemed that one important person who was not tarnished was Bill Gates. Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He's one of the most influential people in the world. That's our colleague Emily Glazer, and she's been covering Bill Gates for years. Why hasn't Bill Gates' reputation just collapsed? Like, how is he still doing all these interviews and speaking at conferences when we had seen, one by one, other powerful people tied to Epstein resign, lose their jobs, getting investigated by international governments?

0:50How is Bill still kind of, like, doing his thing? And why does it matter? why should we care about Bill Gates' reputation? His reputation matters because that is the thing holding a lot of his whole infrastructure together. That is why people still continue to meet with him, why he has influence over policy, why people want his money. I've talked to someone recently who said, when you say it's tied to Bill Gates, the answer is almost automatically yes. And I think a lot of people don't even realize how much influence and power he has. because it's so carefully crafted and controlled. And it turned out his reputation was crumbling.

1:34We just hadn't realized it yet, because they were really trying to keep it under wraps. And once we started digging, it was actually unraveling bit by bit by bit by bit. Tomorrow, Gates is scheduled to appear in a closed-door congressional hearing about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Look, there's more than a thousand emails connected to Bill, people who worked for him. There are a lot of questions leading up to this congressional questioning.

2:06Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, June 9th.

2:19coming up on the show Bill Gates' carefully crafted reputation and how it's unraveling

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3:44For many years, Bill Gates held the title of the world's richest man. So Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen way back in the day. A lot of the technology and hardware that we use either comes from them or inspired by them. But in the 90s, Microsoft faced several antitrust investigations. And in the hearings that followed, Gates became known for stridently defending the company. Here he is responding to questions in a deposition. I don't remember a specific document where I did. I don't know what you mean. You're asking me to recall every context where I might have ever used that shorthand?

4:21I said I don't recall using that word. I don't recall the date. After the hearings, Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and turned instead to philanthropy. In particular, a new nonprofit he'd started with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation focuses on global health and development, including the fight against childhood mortality and infectious diseases. Here's Gates talking about the foundation's work on malaria in a TED Talk. Now, malaria is, of course, transmitted by mosquitoes. I brought some here so you could experience this. We'll let those roam around the auditorium a little bit.

5:03There. There's no reason only poor people should have the experience. Over the years, the Gates Foundation has grown. It now has an$89 billion endowment. There's a certain image of Bill Gates that exists. And as the Gates Foundation is getting into full swing, it's this whole other philanthropic side of Bill Gates. And in her reporting, Emily found that this transformation was very much by design. He has teams of people around him that are also carefully cultivating his image and reputation, almost like a rehab of going from like younger, less polished, bad boy Bill to ultimately create someone who is more approachable and calm and a philanthropist.

6:00Gates had stylists come up with a whole look for him, one that's become his signature. The look that they go for today is someone very calm and approachable, akin to Mr. Rogers. It is very neutral colored sweaters, crewneck or v-neck. There's often a neutral button down underneath, neutral slacks. And of course, Bill wears his signature silver lining optician's carbon glasses, thick framed glasses. It's like Steve Jobs, but like friendly. It's like there's a uniform that they go for. Grandfatherly. Emily discovered that Gaze's team goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain that Mr. Rogers image.

6:43His clothes are housed in an off-campus building. There's even a custom mannequin to try on his clothes, to tailor his clothes. And before he has events, oftentimes there are three different outfit options with photos taken of sweater, pants, shoes, kind of like lined up and messaged around to get approval for the best look.

7:13For a long time, all that effort seemed to work. In 2019, Gates hit a peak when it came to his popularity. There's this YouGov survey where Bill Gates was ranked at the top of this list of the most admired men. He ranked higher than the Dalai Lama, than the Pope, than Barack Obama. And there was an internal email where his right-hand man, Larry Cohen, who's CEO of his private office, was really cheering on the results and notably says, like, this is because of the hard work of our team. Like, you know, admitting they have crafted this and they did it. And here it is, measured for all to see. That poll published in July of 2019.

7:57The next month, a seemingly unrelated event hit the news. That same year, the sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein dies in jail. And there are all these questions that bubble up around Epstein's death and who he knew. And there were media reports at that time about how Bill Gates actually had greater ties to Jeffrey Epstein than what was previously known. Soon after, a documentary came out on Netflix called Inside Bill's Brain. And it offered a glowing look at Gates' philanthropic second act. The Journal interviewed Gates about the documentary at the time, asking him about his Epstein Association.

8:42Gates responded that while he met with Epstein, he didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him. Bill said in our Wall Street Journal story, there were people around him who were saying, hey, if you want to raise money for global health and get more philanthropy, he knows a lot of rich people. Every meeting where I was with him were meetings with men. I was never at any parties or anything like that. Gates and his team stuck to that messaging for years. They claimed that his relationship with Epstein was strictly about philanthropy and that women were not present during their meetings.

9:17Then, in 2021, Bill and Melinda announced that they were splitting up. After 27 years, Bill and Melinda Gates are calling it quits, tweeting in a joint statement, After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. And Melinda went on CBS and did this whole interview, and she said she was upset with Bill's past meetings with Epstein. Did that play a role in the divorce at all in this process? Yeah, as I said, it's not one thing. It was many things. But I did not like that he'd had meetings with every Epstein, no. So it's kind of like the Epstein stuff is continuing to dribble out a little bit.

10:02And Emily's recent reporting revealed that in the divorce proceedings, there were allegations that Gates was involved in more than 20 affairs. A spokeswoman for French Gates declined to comment. After the divorce, Gates and his team ramped up their efforts to preserve his image as a benevolent benefactor. Bill Gates' team behind the scenes in 2023 is actually preparing for yet another Netflix documentary. What I learned from reporting this after is that the Netflix documentary was another tool in their very vast toolkit to help burnish his reputation. The documentary built up Gates as a visionary.

10:41The world is facing a lot of big challenges right now. Climate change. Creating responsible AI. Misinformation. Income. Inequality. Dealing with infectious diseases. But I believe we can solve them. None of the documentary's five episodes mention Epstein. But I learned that while the project was pitched to staff as an independent documentary, some of these internal records and reporting revealed that there was quite a bit of involvement by the Gates empire. Emily reviewed one nine-page memo in which an executive at Gates' private office shared reactions to the documentary, including some very specific concerns.

11:23One was, quote, some of the people in this episode have to go completely, end quote. So they're choosing who gets to be in it. And when I did some reporting on people that have worked on documentaries with, you know, celebrities or powerful people, I was told that that is extremely rare to go to that lane. Another request was, quote, we all strongly ask again that you change the sour look Bill has on his face at the end shot. Hmm. So down to the facial expressions. Indeed. Another document from Gates' team suggested that the production company do more filming and editing and offered to pay for it.

12:06Spokespeople for Netflix and the production company Tremolo said they had no knowledge of Gates or his team paying for any part of the documentary. A Netflix spokesperson said Netflix retained final cut and creative approval of the series.

12:24If the 2024 documentary was an attempt by Gates' team to look ahead, the Justice Department's trove of Epstein files was about to dig up the past. In January, the DOJ released millions of documents from its investigation of Epstein. Ultimately, the files included more than a thousand emails connecting back to Bill Gates, the foundation, or people that work for him. And in particular, it also showed hundreds of messages that were between Epstein and two of Bill's closest associates over the years that went back a number of years all the way to 2019, the year that Epstein died. As these details have spilled into public view, they've begun eroding the careful efforts by Gates' team to protect his reputation.

13:11It is a huge sea change. All of a sudden, his influence is diminishing.

13:20That's next.

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14:33The DOJ's latest release of the Epstein files revealed a relationship between Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein that was far more complex than what Gates and his team had been presenting. There were a lot of new questions that showed this seemed to go much further than philanthropy. So what kind of details do we know now about the relationship? Turns out Epstein traveled with and introduced Gates to the head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Epstein was involved in negotiations between Gates's employees and Gates himself. And Gates posed for photos that were released with Epstein and women around Epstein.

15:16And their faces were redacted. Right, which is at odds with what he said about only being in rooms with men, which was what he said in his quote to The Wall Street Journal in 2019. Yeah. Now, Bill has said that the women around Epstein, those meetings occurred, the photos occurred before or after their meetings, that he didn't talk to those women. The DOJ files also showed that Epstein knew about some of Gates' alleged affairs. A spokesperson for Bill Gates had said that at least some of these emails that were in the DOJ Epstein files are, quote, absolutely absurd and completely false, end quote.

15:52A Gates spokesperson said he wasn't involved in any illegal activities with Epstein and acknowledged it was a mistake to have met with him.

16:04Internally, employees across Gates' organizations were increasingly troubled by what was coming out about him in the Epstein files. So in February, Gates decided to address the issue at a Gates Foundation town hall meeting. Gates had a previously scheduled town hall, so it was already on the books. They're known internally as BG, unplugged. and the Gates Foundation employees gathered in the atrium. This is in their Gates Foundation Seattle headquarters. And from the very beginning, the first question he's asked is to give context as to why his name appears in the DOJ's obscene files. At the town hall, Gates said the situation was, quote, opposite of the values of the foundation.

16:48He also acknowledged two affairs with Russian women that had come up in the files. And for the first time in quite a while, at least what I was hearing from a lot of my sources, is that they felt like that the mission and what was coming out about Bill were just not aligned. How much of a turning point was this town hall for Gates? From doing reporting on this, the sense that I get now was that some thought that this town hall, if he opened himself up and like bared his soul and acknowledged mistakes he had made in his personal life, that it would try to put an end to all of this chatter around Bill Gates.

17:30It actually had the opposite effect. And it was only angering them more. Even as Gates and his team fought to handle concerns about him internally, frustrations with Gates were spilling out externally. Earlier this year, Bill Gates goes on this big trip to India. In India, Gates was meant to deliver a keynote speech at a major AI summit that involved tech leaders and heads of state, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. And days before his keynote, his name is suddenly not appearing in certain key attendee searches on the conference website. And then Indian government officials are telling local news agencies that his invitation is being reviewed because of his appearance in the Epstein files.

18:18What's super interesting is around this time, the Gates Foundation's India office tweeted, quote, Bill Gates is attending the AI Impact Summit. He will be delivering his keynote as scheduled. So Bill is staying at the Oberoi. It's this very fancy hotel where a lot of statespeople tend to stay. And ultimately, one of his Gates Foundation executives received word from the Indian government that it would actually be better if Gates was not part of the summit because of the heightened Epstein news and that they felt like that was going to take away from the AI focus. And they ultimately had to tweet that he wouldn't be giving the keynote address.

18:58It's all very public. In late March, Gates was absent from another major event called Sarah Week. It's the energy industry's premier gathering in Houston, and Gates had been a marquee speaker in previous years. According to Emily's reporting, the Sarah Week organizers had discussions with Gates' team about him speaking, but ultimately decided that given Gates' Epstein ties, it wasn't the right time for him to take the stage. And the snubs kept coming. Then we get to early May, where his good pal, longtime pal, Warren Buffett, the company Berkshire Hathaway that Warren Buffett led for many years, had its annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, which is always known to be this huge event.

19:41People trek from all over the world to go there. Bill had gone for many, many, many, many years. And before that meeting, people around him advised him not to go. Weeks before the shareholder meeting, Buffett had gone on CNBC. and said that he'd started distancing himself from Gates since his ties to Epstein came to light. But Emily says the biggest snub of all came from the company that Gates co-founded, Microsoft. Microsoft has a CEO summit every year, and Bill usually hosts this dinner with CEOs at his house. And I've talked to CEOs that have told me it's one of their favorite events of the year.

20:22It's amazing, and they get there by boat, And it's like both really great conversation and also a spectacular setting. Ahead of the dinner, Gates's team received word that it would be better not to do it this year. A Microsoft spokesman said that, quote, while it didn't work out this year, we've already extended an invitation for Bill to attend the CEO summit next year.

20:47So what was it that ultimately did it? Like, what did it take to really hurt Bill Gates's reputation? Was it the new details about his ties to Epstein? I think it's not like a simple answer. I think the bigger thing here is how much deeper those ties went and that they are at odds with what Bill and his team have said over and over and over again for many years. The script didn't work. That script will be questioned tomorrow by the House Oversight Committee. Gates is scheduled to appear June 10th for a closed-door interview. And he's expected to answer questions about Jeffrey Epstein. Emily says that Gates' team will be paying close attention.

21:33From my reporting, I know that there's a hope that it kind of ends and quiets down after this congressional questioning. A lot of the focus has been leading up to this. It's kind of been this, like, marker of sorts, like, internally in his empire, They know they're going to keep dealing with more and more chatter and news stories and issues tied to the congressional questioning and that it's going to keep coming until then and that the hope is that it quiets after that. Bill Gates, no doubt one of the most influential people on the planet, right? In this moment, how do you think about his legacy?

22:15I think it goes back to these nonprofit partners still needing his money. You know, I've talked to a number of nonprofits, and because federal funding has dried up, they'd rather keep doing their work and take what they think may be like tainted money than not do it. So if the nonprofits start saying, we don't want your money anymore, that is going to be a really interesting next chapter. But I think his legacy is complicated. He has done a lot of good, and there's no denying that. You can't take away all he's done with Microsoft, all he's done with the Gates Foundation. You can't take away all of that.

22:59But I think you certainly cannot take away these ties to Epstein. He can't really get away from them now. They're like interwoven now in his story, even though I think he and his team wish they weren't.

23:22That's all for today, Tuesday, June 9th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.