Key Takeaways:
Bill Gates will testify before Congress this week as newly released Justice Department files expose the role of a previously hidden intermediary who maintained close ties to both the Microsoft co-founder and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It was September 2017, and Dr. Melanie Walker's work with Bill Gates was coming to an end. For more than a decade, Walker had worked at the Gates Foundation and then the billionaire's private office. By the summer of 2017, the relationship between Walker and Gates had turned sexual, according to people familiar with the matter. Walker was planning her exit.
She turned to one of her closest confidants — a mentor who had supported her and advised her for nearly three decades: Jeffrey Epstein.
"With bg. All you would have to say, is you should know that I've told jeffrey everything – everything," Epstein wrote in a text message. Walker replied that she was "worried he will immediately retaliate against me."
The exchange, contained in the Justice Department's release of Epstein files, will be among the subjects Gates must address when he appears before Congress this week. The Gates Foundation has launched its own probe into its Epstein ties, handled by the law firm WilmerHale, according to people familiar with the matter. Investigators have asked about Walker and the nature of her relationship with Gates.
Walker, now 54 and a professor at UW Medicine, has largely remained off the public radar compared with other Epstein associates. Her lawyer, David Fleissig, called her "a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein" who endured "a coercive relationship that spanned decades and ended only with his death."
A spokesperson for Gates said he "was not aware of the nature of the relationship between Walker and Epstein, their shared motives, or the details of their history together." The spokesperson added that "correspondence between Epstein and Walker reveals that Epstein was actively encouraging Walker to pursue a sexual relationship with Gates."
The Epstein-Gates connection runs through a Seattle doctor
Walker first met Epstein in the early 1990s at the Plaza Hotel in New York, an introduction she has said was made by Donald Trump. At the time, Walker was a recent University of Texas graduate. Epstein advised her to pursue medical school rather than modeling, and she did. Records show she listed an address in a New York apartment building at 301 East 66th Street, the same building where Epstein controlled multiple units used to house associates and victims.
By 2006, Walker had joined the Gates Foundation, then a fast-growing startup in global health. There she befriended Boris Nikolic, a Harvard-trained immunologist who was Gates's chief science adviser. In 2009, she took Nikolic to lunch and delivered what amounted to a pitch for Epstein, according to Nikolic, who told The Wall Street Journal he had never heard of Epstein before that meeting.
In an October 2009 email to Epstein, Walker pitched him on running her foundation and disclosed that Nikolic was moving to work with Gates full time — information she described as confidential. "He will want to know if he can trust you and how much he can tell you," she wrote of Nikolic. "I guess it just takes time."
For Epstein, Gates represented the ultimate prize: access to one of the world's richest men, with his deep-pocketed foundation and unmatched convening power in global health. In January 2011, ahead of Epstein's first meeting with Gates, Walker emailed Gates to prepare him, calling Epstein "one of my closest friends." She relayed Epstein's personal philosophy as "only do what makes you happy" and added: "The world's most gorgeous people hang around Jeffrey. He's very discreet. Just sayin…"
Gates has said he met multiple times with Epstein from 2011 to 2014, including at his New York townhouse, to discuss philanthropy. Epstein sought unsuccessfully to convince Gates to establish a global donor fund with JPMorgan and discovered some of the billionaire's extramarital affairs.
A relationship turns sexual as Walker seeks Epstein's counsel
By 2017, Walker had left the foundation and joined Gates's private office. That is when their relationship became sexual, and in messages to Epstein, she described some of her encounters with Gates. In July 2017, while attending an Alzheimer's conference in London, Walker texted Epstein that Gates was "very gross" and "not the person ppl think." She described Gates as "a huge distraction" and said she felt "trapped."
The Gates spokesperson said "there is also communication between Walker and others — including Epstein — that paints a very different picture of her positive sentiment toward Gates at the time," and that "Gates never engaged in coercive, predatory or nonconsensual sexual behavior."
Walker soon sought Epstein's input on negotiating her exit from Gates's private office. In August 2017, the two settled on coded language — references to private "hangar meetings" — that Walker would use in messages to Gates specifically because, as Epstein put it, "he won't forward that."
When Walker didn't receive a reply from Gates on her proposal in November 2017, Epstein pressed her to use a stronger approach. Walker provided an inventory of her leverage: "Yes. I have a 'blue dress' emails and a few other embarrassing things and yes the stories are so eerily similar to all in media that he sounds weinsteinlike. I cant be the only one," she wrote, though she expressed hesitation about pursuing any action.
After Walker's time at the private office ended, she kept lines to Gates open, exchanging messages after Covid and sending condolences when his father died. In February 2019, she reported back to Epstein that she met Gates and discussed science. "Was great to see him," she texted. "I told him he owed you a call and he didn't say anything — he asked how you were."
Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in July 2019. He died in his jail cell the next month.
The congressional testimony this week marks the first time Gates will face direct questions about the full scope of his Epstein ties, including the role of the intermediary who bridged both worlds for nearly three decades. The WilmerHale probe into the Gates Foundation's Epstein connections is ongoing, and the Justice Department's release of Epstein files has opened a new front of scrutiny for one of the world's most prominent philanthropists.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
