Bill Gates cancels speech to ‘ensure focus’ on AI, after being named in Epstein files

Bill Gates watches a tennis match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

NEW DELHI, India -- Bill Gates has cancelled his speech that was scheduled for Thursday at a major AI summit in India, the Gates Foundation said, after the Microsoft founder was named in the Epstein files.

“After careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities, Mr. Gates will not be delivering his keynote address,” the foundation said in a statement.

“The Gates Foundation remains fully committed to our work in India to advance our shared health and development goals,” it said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tech CEOs will speak about the opportunities and threats posed by artificial intelligence at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Thursday.

The Gates Foundation said the president of its Africa and India offices would speak instead.

Gates this month said he regrets “every minute” he spent with Jeffrey Epstein, as his former wife Melinda said he still had questions to answer over his relationship with the late convicted sexual offender.

The latest tranche of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department contained emails between many prominent figures and Epstein -- often revealing warm friendships, illicit financial dealings and private photos.

In a draft email among the documents, Epstein alleged Gates engaged in extramarital affairs.

Epstein wrote that his relationship with Gates ranged from “helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trysts, with married women.”

The mere mention of someone’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply any wrongdoing by that person.

“Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize,” Gates, a billionaire philanthropist, told 9News Australia in an interview.

“That email was never sent. The email is false,” he said. “I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way?”

Gates’s spokesperson issued a similar denial after the fresh cache of millions of files related to the investigation into Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019, were released.

“The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame,” the spokesperson said.

Melinda French Gates told U.S. National Public Radio that the document dump brought back “memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage”.

“Whatever questions remain there of what -- I can’t even begin to know all of it -- those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”

The couple divorced in 2021.

AFP