Bill Gates has acknowledged that he had an extramarital affair with a Microsoft employee amid divorce proceedings.
Gates confirmed this through a spokeswoman that he had an “intimate relationship” with the employee shortly before he resigned from the board last year.
However, it is not clear what role the investigation or the affair, which took place two decades ago, played in the decision the Microsoft co-founder and his wife, Melinda French Gates, made to divorce after 27 years of marriage.
When they announced their divorce earlier this month, the couple posted identical and simultaneous tweets saying that “after a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage.”
Gates on his part, stepped down from Microsoft’s board in March 2020, departing before the investigation was complete.
The Wall Street Journal had also reported that Microsoft directors decided that Gates needed to leave the board, as it investigated the relationship.
Also, the New York Times reported last Sunday that Gates pursued women who worked both at Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Mrs Gates hired divorce lawyers in 2019, after meetings that Gates had with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became public, the Times also reported.
Epstein, who had been charged with sexually abusing dozens of young girls in the early 2000s, committed suicide while in custody in 2019.
More details of Gates’s affair has emerged, including the name of the employee, how long their relationship lasted and whether she continues to work for Microsoft.
It is also unclear what led the employee to report the relationship with Gates to the company when she did.
