Bill Gates is hoping to ride out the storm, one week after it was revealed he had hitched a ride on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane.
The billionaire was the chairman of Microsoft at the time he traveled with Epstein on the Lolita Express in 2013, four years after the pedophile served time for soliciting a minor under the age of 18 for sex.
Flight records reveal that Gates flew with Epstein from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach on March 1, 2013, one of the few flights that year where pilot Larry Viskoski recorded the name of a passenger.
A representative for Gates has not responded to requests for comment, beyond claiming that the once-richest man in the world never had any financial or charitable ties to Epstein.
The pairing is an odd one given the work Melinda Gates and the couple’s foundation does for young women around the world.
And it is known that the two had spent time together previously, most notably at the annual Edge Dinner, which each year welcomes billionaires from around the world to come together and discuss advancements they are working in on the worlds of math, science and technology.
In fact, the 2013 dinner took place just two nights before they flew to Florida, though neither of the men are pictured attending that year’s event.
Epstein did claim he worked as a financial adviser to Gates for some time, but that claim was later shot down by the Microsoft founder’s representative.
The two men do however both own property in southern Florida, where Epstein had two homes including a $12 million Palm Beach mansion and Gates owns a five-property compound in Wellington that he purchased for a total of $40 million.
In a biography that was published on the website for Edge, but later deleted, it is noted that Epstein ‘founded the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation in 2000 to fund and support cutting edge science around the world.’
He is also said to be ‘one of the largest supporters of individual scientists, including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and Nobel Laureates Gerard ‘t Hooft, David Gross and Frank Wilczek.’
In an alarming addition, the biography then states that Epstein has taken ‘an active role in supporting education across the United States as well as philanthropy in the US Virgin Islands, where the foundation is based.’
He traveled to the 2002 dinner with guests including architect David Rockwell, author Michael Wolff, journalist Richard Cook, and literary agent John Brockman – who was also the editor of the Edge website.