Epstein threatened to expose Gates’ alleged affair with Russian bridge player: Report
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Late financier Jeffrey Epstein threatened to expose Bill Gates’ affair with a Russian bridge player after the Microsoft co-founder bailed on the pedophile’s multi-billion-dollar charitable fund with JPMorgan Chase.
Gates met Mila Antonova in 2010 at a tournament after she moved to the Bay Area to work as a software engineer, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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That year, Antonova acknowledged she and Gates were friendly in a 2010 YouTube video but the Wall Street Journal reported the two had a brief romance while he was still married to Melinda French Gates. Gates was 55 and Antonova was in her 20s at the time.
Epstein reportedly met Antonova in 2013 while she was looking for financial backers for a bridge academy. While he did not bankroll the project, he reportedly paid for the card shark to attend software coding school.
His supposed threat was not made until 2017 when Epstein sent Gates an email asking for reimbursement for Antonova’s coding school in a tone that implied he knew about the affair and could expose it, the paper reported.
That 2017 message came shortly after the Microsoft billionaire opted to not sign on with the sex offender’s charity with JPMorgan, according to sources.
A spokesperson for Gates told the Journal that he did not pay for the cost of Antonova’s coding school.
“Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes,” his spokesperson said. “Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates.”
Gates’s spokesperson reiterated to the Daily Mail that the fees were not paid.
“Mr. Gates never had any financial dealings with Epstein,” his spokesperson said. “As Bill has said before, it was a mistake to have ever met him.”
In 2022, Gates acknowledged that he regretted ever meeting with Epstein.
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Antonova told the Journal she didn’t know who Epstein was when they met a decade ago, just that he was a “successful businessman and wanted to help.”
As for Epstein funding her coding education, she didn’t know why he did it.
“When I asked, he said something like he was wealthy and wanted to help people when he could.”
Epstein also gave Antonova access to an apartment in New York City in November 2014 but she said she did not interact with Epstein or anyone else during the brief stay.
She added: “I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did,” but did not comment on her alleged affair with Gates.
Gates’ alleged fling with Antonova would be the second known dalliance during his marriage with French Gates.
In 2021, Gates admitted to being involved with a Microsoft employee, a relationship his representative said “ended amicably” before Gates stepped down from the company to focus on his philanthropy.
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