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Chapter 1: What events led to the scrutiny of Bill Gates's reputation?
In the months since the Justice Department released the so-called Epstein files, some powerful people have lost their jobs and their credibility as a result of their relationships with him. But for a long while, it seemed that one important person who was not tarnished was Bill Gates. Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He's one of the most influential people in the world.
That's our colleague Emily Glazer, and she's been covering Bill Gates for years.
Why hasn't Bill Gates' reputation just collapsed? Like, how is he still doing all these interviews and speaking at conferences when we had seen one by one other powerful people tied to Epstein resign, lose their jobs, getting investigated by international governments? How is Bill still kind of like doing his thing? And why does it matter? Why should we care about Bill Gates' reputation?
His reputation matters because that is the thing holding a lot of his whole infrastructure together. That is why people still continue to meet with him, why he has influence over policy. why people want his money. I've talked to someone recently who said, when you say it's tied to Bill Gates, the answer is almost automatically yes.
And I think a lot of people don't even realize how much influence and power he has because it's so carefully crafted and controlled.
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Chapter 2: Why has Bill Gates's reputation remained resilient despite controversies?
And it turned out his reputation was crumbling. We just hadn't realized it yet because they were really trying to keep it under wraps. And once we started digging, it was actually unraveling bit by bit by bit by bit.
Tomorrow, Gates is scheduled to appear in a closed-door congressional hearing about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Look, there's more than a thousand emails connected to Bill, people who worked for him. There are a lot of questions leading up to this congressional questioning.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, June 9th. Coming up on the show, Bill Gates' carefully crafted reputation and how it's unraveling. For many years, Bill Gates held the title of the world's richest man.
So Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen way back in the day. A lot of the technology and hardware that we use either comes from them or inspired by them.
But in the 90s, Microsoft faced several antitrust investigations. And in the hearings that followed, Gates became known for stridently defending the company.
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Chapter 3: How did Bill Gates transition from Microsoft to philanthropy?
Here he is responding to questions in a deposition.
I don't remember a specific document where I did. I don't know what you mean. You're asking me to recall every context where I might have ever used that shorthand? I said I don't recall using that word. I don't recall the date.
After the hearings, Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and turned instead to philanthropy. In particular, a new nonprofit he'd started with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation focuses on global health and development, including the fight against childhood mortality and infectious diseases. Here's Gates talking about the foundation's work on malaria in a TED Talk.
Now malaria is of course transmitted by mosquitoes. I brought some here so you could experience this. We'll let those roam around the auditorium a little bit. There. There's no reason only poor people should have the experience.
Chapter 4: What strategies did Gates use to cultivate his public image?
Over the years, the Gates Foundation has grown. It now has an $89 billion endowment. There's a certain image of Bill Gates that exists.
And as the Gates Foundation is getting into full swing, it's this whole other philanthropic side of Bill Gates.
And in her reporting, Emily found that this transformation was very much by design.
He has teams of people around him that are also carefully cultivating his image and reputation, almost like a rehab of going from like younger, less polished, bad boy Bill to ultimately create someone who is more approachable and calm and a philanthropist.
Gates had stylists come up with a whole look for him, one that's become his signature.
The look that they go for today is someone very calm and approachable, akin to Mr. Rogers. It is very neutral colored sweaters, crew neck or v-neck. There's often a neutral button down underneath, neutral slacks. And of course, Bill wears his signature silver lining optician's carbon glasses, thick framed glasses. It's like Steve Jobs, but like friendly.
Yeah.
It's like there's a uniform that they go for.
Grandfatherly.
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Chapter 5: What impact did the Epstein scandal have on Gates's reputation?
Emily discovered that Gates' team goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain that Mr. Rogers image.
His clothes are housed in an off-campus building. There's even a custom mannequin to try on his clothes, to tailor his clothes. And before he has events, oftentimes there are three different outfit options with photos taken of sweater outfits. Pants, shoes, kind of like lined up and messaged around to get approval for the best look.
For a long time, all that effort seemed to work. In 2019, Gates hit a peak when it came to his popularity.
There's this YouGov survey where Bill Gates was ranked at the top of this list of the most admired men. He ranked higher than the Dalai Lama. then the Pope, then Barack Obama. And there was an internal email where his right-hand man, Larry Cohen, who's CEO of his private office, was really cheering on the results and notably says, like, this is because of the hard work of our team.
Like, you know, admitting they have crafted this and they did it, and here it is measured for all to see.
That poll published in July of 2019. The next month, a seemingly unrelated event hit the news.
That same year, the sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein dies in jail.
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Chapter 6: How did Gates's divorce affect public perception of him?
And there are all these questions that bubble up around Epstein's death and who he knew. And there were media reports at that time about how Bill Gates actually had greater ties to Jeffrey Epstein than what was previously known.
Soon after, a documentary came out on Netflix called Inside Bill's Brain, and it offered a glowing look at Gates' philanthropic second act. The Journal interviewed Gates about the documentary at the time, asking him about his Epstein association. Gates responded that while he met with Epstein, he didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him.
Bill said in our Wall Street Journal story, there were people around him who were saying, hey, if you want to raise money for global health and get more philanthropy, he knows a lot of rich people. Every meeting where I was with him were meetings with men. I was never at any parties or anything like that.
Gates and his team stuck to that messaging for years. They claimed that his relationship with Epstein was strictly about philanthropy and that women were not present during their meetings. Then, in 2021, Bill and Melinda announced that they were splitting up.
After 27 years, Bill and Melinda Gates are calling it quits, tweeting in a joint statement, After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage.
Melinda went on CBS and did this whole interview, and she said she was upset with Bill's past meetings with Epstein.
Did that play a role in the divorce at all in this process? Yeah, as I said, it's not one thing.
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Chapter 7: What are the latest developments regarding Gates's ties to Epstein?
It was many things. But I did not like that he'd had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no.
So it's kind of like the Epstein stuff is continuing to dribble out a little bit.
And Emily's recent reporting revealed that in the divorce proceedings, there were allegations that Gates was involved in more than 20 affairs. A spokeswoman for French Gates declined to comment. After the divorce, Gates and his team ramped up their efforts to preserve his image as a benevolent benefactor.
Bill Gates' team, behind the scenes in 2023, is actually preparing for yet another Netflix documentary. What I learned from reporting this after is that the Netflix documentary was another tool in their very vast toolkit to help burnish his reputation.
The documentary built up Gates as a visionary.
The world is facing a lot of big challenges right now. Climate change. Creating responsible AI. Misinformation. Income inequality. Dealing with infectious diseases.
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Chapter 8: How is Bill Gates's legacy viewed in light of recent controversies?
But I believe we can solve them.
None of the documentary's five episodes mention Epstein.
But I learned that while the project was pitched to staff as an independent documentary, some of these internal records and reporting revealed that there was quite a bit of involvement by the Gates empire.
Emily reviewed one nine-page memo in which an executive at Gates' private office shared reactions to the documentary, including some very specific concerns.
One was, quote, some of the people in this episode have to go completely, end quote.
So they're choosing who gets to be in it.
And when I did some reporting on people that have worked on documentaries with, you know, celebrities or powerful people, I was told that that is extremely rare to go to that length. Another request was, quote, we all strongly ask again that you change the sour look Bill has on his face at the end shot.
So down to the facial expressions. Indeed.
Yeah.
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