How Bill Gates turned to Jeffrey Epstein in desperate bid for the one thing he can’t buy

Bill Gates is desperate for the one thing his billions can’t buy: a Nobel Peace Prize. He even has a team of staffers dedicated to making him seem like a “lovable nerd philanthropist” as part of his quest, according to a new book.

It’s also why he befriended Jeffrey Epstein — just one of the skeletons in his closet, Anupreeta Das writes in her new book,  “Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World,” out Aug. 13.

“To boost his candidacy for the big prize, some of his handlers … launched publicity campaigns when the world was nearing a public health milestone that the Gates Foundation was involved in,” writes Das, finance editor of the New York Times.

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The 68-year-old Microsoft co-founder, whose fortune is estimated at $153 billion, has more than two dozen staffers at his company Gates Ventures working to “constantly shape, monitor, and polish Gates’s aura in the press, and fashion the positive aspects into a consistent, relatable brand,” according to the book.

His team is said to be “constantly” seeking to counter his longtime image as an “awkward, sometimes robotic man unable to connect easily with an audience.”

Das writes that Epstein began to “tunnel his way into Gates’s orbit” as early as 2010, when Gates and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett launched The Giving Pledge, a campaign through which they vowed to donate 99% of their wealth.

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The two men became friends — with Gates calling Epstein “my buddy” — as they worked on a donor-advised fund through JP Morgan that would give wealthy members anonymity in how the money was directed.

Epstein, who had pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring underage girls for prostitution, apparently hoped to whitewash his own image, and knew how to get Gates’ attention: He told a Gates Foundation employee he could help the billionaire win a Nobel for working to eradicate polio.

In 2013, Epstein, Gates and Terje Rød-Larsen — an influential Norwegian diplomat who helped negotiate the Oslo Accords — flew to Strasbourg, France, to meet with Thorbjørn Jagland, then the chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

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Despite this, no Nobel was forthcoming. And Rød-Larsen, who ran the International Peace Institute in New York, was forced to quit his role in 2020 after it was reported he had taken money from Epstein to support his work.

Emails reviewed in an inquiry conducted by MIT over the school’s ties to Epstein detailed “references to Gates visiting Epstein’s residences, and Epstein arranging for ‘Big Macs,’ which one of the people said referred to Epstein’s interest in young women — and also the food he was sometimes known to serve.”

Gates denies most of the accusations in Das’ book.

In a statement to The Post, Gates said, “The book includes highly sensationalized allegations and outright falsehoods that ignore the actual documented facts our office provided to the author on numerous occasions.”

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A rep for Gates recently told the Daily Mail: “Mr. Gates has previously stated his deep regret for ever meeting with Epstein, who he met with for discussions regarding philanthropy only.”

Nonetheless, Gates’ relationship with the disgraced Epstein caused a “large tear” in his public image, the book claims.

His ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, with whom Gates shares three grown children, confirmed that the friendship was a reason for their divorce in 2021, telling Gayle King, “I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him.” 

She revealed she met with the pedophile and convicted sex trafficker “exactly one time” because she “wanted to see who this man was.

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“I regretted it the second I walked in the door. He was abhorrent. He was evil personified,” she added.

The book also delves into Gates’ alleged cheating, which Das writes left Melinda “seething for a long time.”

Following his split from Melinda after 27 years of marriage, a spokesperson for Gates confirmed an affair with a staffer that took place nearly 20 years ago. Das refers to extramarital affairs, plural.

The book adds that Gates was like a “kid in the candy store” when it came to young interns at Microsoft — forcing management to ban them from being alone with the billionaire.

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It was “not unusual for Gates to flirt with women and pursue them, making unwanted advances such as asking a Microsoft employee out to dinner while he was still the company’s chairman,” Das writes.

According to the book, Melinda overhauled her husband’s security team due to her concerns that they were “enabling him to be places where [she] didn’t know he was at.”

She also ordered the couple’s housekeepers not to give out his direct phone number when women called the house, and made him get a new assistant.

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Gates’ overtures to women were considered “clumsy rather than predatory,” people who witnessed them firsthand say.

He “flirted with some of the interns at the Gates Foundation, putting them in the uncomfortable position of having to think about their career prospects while not wanting to be hit on by the boss.”

Das writes: “In one instance a colleague chastised one person for sending a 22-year-old intern to Gates’ office by herself, saying: ‘She’s too young and too pretty.'”

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A Microsoft executive told Das that Gates did not “prey on” women or ask for sexual favors in exchange for advancing their professional prospects.

“He’s not Harvey Weinstein … I know of no real situation in which anyone got anything for sleeping with Bill,” the former executive says in the book.

Gates showed a “certain naivete in his interactions with women, mistaking engaged conversation for mutual interest,” the exec added.

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However, “news of his personal conduct too has corroded his image and alienated some of his closest friends, including [fellow billionaire Warren] Buffett,” the book says. 

Das writes that Gates, who is now dating Paula Hurd, “has also become the subject of conspiracy theories about vaccines and the intentions of powerful men, as social media draws untruths and twisted truths to the mainstream.  

“The boy genius who had turned into a ruthless monopolist only to turn into a benevolent philanthropist had shape-shifted yet again. And this time, Gates’s image had turned into something darker, blurrier, and more divisive.”

And not all of his money is used for the greater good.

The book alleges that, when a rerouting of Highway 106 was going to split Gates’ Hood Canal, Wash., vacation compound in two, the billionaire “reportedly paid the State of Washington more than $2 million to have a special tunnel built under the rerouted highway to connect the compound,” which is patrolled by armed security guards.