New details have emerged about the controversial reason for Bill Gates’s resignation from the Microsoft board.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has resigned from the Microsoft board in 2020 over an investigation into his relationship with a female employee. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft board members concluded in 2020 that Gates’ continued presence on the board was not appropriate in the course of the investigation. The investigation began in 2019 after a female Microsoft engineer sent a letter claiming that Gates had been in a relationship with her for years.
Bill Gates resigned from the board of Microsoft before the end of the investigation. A Gates spokesman acknowledged that the relationship ended “amicably” about 20 years ago. He also claimed that Gates’ decision to resign from the Microsoft board was not related to this relationship.
The New York Times also revealed in another article Gates’ desire to have a relationship with women who worked for Microsoft and the Melinda & Gates Foundation. This article is based on the testimony of people close to Gates.
Bill Gates and his wife recently filed for divorce, stating that their marriage had failed but that they had agreed on how to divide their joint property.
The two said in a separate statement on Twitter that they had decided to end their marriage after much effort and effort to maintain the relationship.
Representatives for Bill Gates pushed back on claims Sunday that he left Microsoft’s board because of an earlier sexual relationship and against two other reports detailing more extensive ties with Jeffrey Epstein than had previously been reported.
Driving the news: Microsoft said in an emailed statement to Axios that it “received a concern” in 2019 that its co-founder “sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000,” but denied a Wall Street Journal report that its board members thought Gates should resign over the matter.
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- “A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm, to conduct a thorough investigation,” per the statement. Notably, Microsoft refused to say what the finding of the investigation found.
- “Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern,” the statement added.
- The New York Times reports that Melinda Gates expressed concern about his relationship with convicted sex offender Epstein and other questionable behavior long before they announced they were divorcing.
- This included his “handling of a previously undisclosed sexual harassment claim against his longtime money manager” in 2018, according to the Times.
- The Daily Beast reports that Epstein advised Gates on how to end his “toxic” marriage as he used the disgraced late financier’s $77 million New York townhouse as an escape.
Of note: Sources close to Gates have called claims that he had any personal conversations with Epstein in meetings about philanthropy — whether about his marriage or anything else — “simply not true.”
