Warren Buffett Skips His Decades-Long Gates Foundation Tradition Over Epstein Concerns
With the shadow of Jeffrey Epstein hanging over Bill Gates, Warren Buffett is holding off on his annual mid-year donation to the Gates Foundation.
Buffett is waiting for a review to determine whether the foundation had links to Epstein, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources it did not name.
The Journal report said Buffett annually donated billions of dollars’ worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Gates Foundation.
Buffett had made a lifetime pledge to support the foundation several years ago.
Multiple reports have placed Gates in Epstein’s orbit, which Gates has not denied. He has said he did nothing improper with Epstein, and that his goal was to increase the cash flow to his philanthropic efforts.
After new information in the Epstein files raised the question again, the Gates Foundation hired law firm WilmerHale to conduct a review to determine whether the foundation had links to Epstein and, if so, how extensive they were.
The report is expected to come out this summer, but the Journal report said Buffett has been seeking information on the review even before publication.
Neither Buffett nor the foundation would comment.
Buffett declined to comment. Representatives for the Gates Foundation didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Between 2006 and 2025, Buffett gave about $48 billion to the foundation.
In March, Buffett said he hadn’t spoken to Gates since the Epstein files were released.
Gates did not attend May’s annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, after being urged to pass on an event he had regularly attended.
The Epstein files included a 2013 document that appeared to be a draft intended to be sent to Gates by Epstein under the name of Boris Nikolic, a top advisor who was leaving Gates’s foundation, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
“TO add insult to the injury you them (sic) implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda and the description of your penis,” the email said.
In the letter, Epstein (posing as Nikolic) wrote that he was “dismayed beyond comprehension” that Gates chose to “disregard our friendship developed over the last 6 years.”
Another email that appeared to be a draft for Nikolic said, “I have been caught up in a severe marital dispute between Melinda and Bill.”
“In my role as his right hand man I have been asked and wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and have been repeatedly asked to do thing (sic) that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal,” the email said.
“From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trusts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall fro (sic) bridge touramnts (sic), as I am a medial doctor, but have no presriptions (sic) writing ability,” the email said.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent, the email is false,” Gates told “Nine News Australia” as cited by NBC News. “So, I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way?”
“It just reminds me, every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that,” he said.
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