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Melinda Gates: Bill's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein led to end of marriage
- corobo 5y agoAt this rate can we just get a list of rich people who aren't potential pedos? Might be quicker..
- dymk 5y agoThis is Kanye and Kim drama but for techies. Is this really how we want to spend our time?
- selfportrait 5y agoLiterally not even comparable. One is about a child sex trafficker who has had deep connections with the state, academia, the sciences and technology. This isn’t petty pop culture drama. It is shameless just how uncaring some people are about the most serious topics.
- paganel 5y agoHopefully neither Kanye nor Mrs. Kardashian were/are pedophiles. Epstein was a pedophile, Gates was in cahoots with him, Gates has founded and, afaik, is still one of biggest shareholders of one of the biggest tech companies on Earth, this counts. It's about our profession and about us helping us keeping it clean. Having owners in cahoots with certified pedos doesn't help at making the industry remain clean. Again, us being led (and paid) by people who are close contacts with certified pedos is not ok. This doesn't matter anymore because the post has been flagged, as I had suspected.
- mercy_dude 5y agoIt makes me chuckle how a creep like Bill, among all the disgusting behaviour still relatively enjoy taint free image. Media has largely been silent and instead many mainstream media had elevated him into a covid expert. Such a sad state of affairs where billionaires can basically buy their image with the help of media, the same media that is supposed to keep in check.
- cloutchaser 5y agoI'm surprised you're getting downvoted, especially on HN. Bill Gates built one of the most anti competitive software businesses in the world, a lot of the profit was made from government contracts. He consciously destroyed competitors or made it impossible for them to operate. I actually believe steve jobs when he says microsoft held back computer development by decades potentially. Yet now he is some sort of god/genius for the elite. It's very nice that he's eliminating disease and helping with vaccines, but I just can't believe how much everyone's forgotten about his past. And then there's the whole Epstein thing on top of that. I mean come on...
- stuu99 5y ago
- rapsey 5y ago> Yet now he is some sort of god/genius for the elite. It's very nice that he's eliminating disease and helping with vaccines, but I just can't believe how much everyone's forgotten about his past. It is definitely not by accident. I'm sure someone was payed very handsomely to fix his reputation.
- pomdapi 5y agoSomebody gave a link higher up : the "someone" includes at least most of the large national "newspapers of reference", around 600 million dollars.
- emerongi 5y agoSteve Jobs was an asshole, but great at developing and marketing products. Elon Musk is an asshole, but great at developing and marketing products. Bill Gates is an asshole, but a great business man and his charity seems to be doing useful work. At some point, you just leave out the "he's an asshole" part, as it's sort of implied.
- oarsinsync 5y ago
- Comevius 5y agoBill Gates is known for his many clumsy and unwanted advances on subordinates, he may have needed Epstein to help him out. That's quite pathetic.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoGlad I still hated him from when he tried to destroy the web, open source and various technical interoperability standards and free markets. Seems a lot of people liked that his wife encouraged him to spend all his ill-gotten gains on charitable causes. I generally prefer people not to steal and undermine society in the first place.
- chirau 5y agoWould you have preferred that he didn't spend his gains on charity? EDIT: Also, did Bill Gates steal anything? Manipulation and monopolies are fundamentally wrong, but they do not amount to stealing. IF they do, then the Carnegies and Rockefellers were 'stealing' as well. Maybe, by your logic, we should take away all those libraries Carnegie built too?
- avgcorrection 5y ago> IF they do, then the Carnegies and Rockefellers were 'stealing' as well. Rockefeller was called a robber baron.
- orwin 5y agoAndrew Carnegie was a robber baron too. I think the Appalachians still have memories of those "great" men.
- alophawen 5y agoHe literally said what he preferred: > I generally prefer people not to steal and undermine society in the first place.
- CPLX 5y agoYes I would prefer the government take it from him in the form of taxes, allowing a democratic process to determine how the money is spent.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
- paganel 5y agoHopefully this post won’t get flagged, as it happened to the ones that had been posted when first clear evidence about the Gates’s connection with Epstein had showed up.
- simion314 5y agoThe post about MS forcing Minecraft users to create MS accounts was flagged super fast and pushed on second page, even if there were many upvotes. I think we have to accept this HN weackness, fanboys and PR teams will push things on or off the first page .
- chiefalchemist 5y agoLet's not let our hopes ruin our objectivity. Effectively...this is suspect evivence in the sense that the context matters. Context always matters. That is, ex-wife, that he cheated on, interviewed by CBS "news". And eventually she'll be pushing a book. She has an axe to grind and knows exactly how to hurt him. He probably deserves it. But that doesn't mean we take her as a "reliable witness."
- uejfiweun 5y agoHonestly, the way the media willfully ignores this Gates-Epstein stuff and the way anything critical of Gates is auto-flagged makes me really hate his pedo guts even more. I mean even Google autocomplete won't show anything for "bill gates epstein". How many people has this guy paid off!?
- eternalban 5y agoI don't use google. How does it perform for "bill clinton epstein"? If same, I suggest you reconsider the control mechanisms involved. [p.s. fun fact. Epstein associate in MC2 "model management" agency, Jean-Luc Brunel, also died of suicide in prison.]
- pluc 5y agowow wtf happened to boingboing? Two sentences, a video and then 6 promoted articles? Along with 37 adblocked items and 13 trackers? how the mighty have fallen
- chiefalchemist 5y agoDon't forget the "news" source...CBS "news". And HN is drooling. What happened to HN as well?
- encryptluks2 5y agoThis isn't just reported by CBS news. Bill Gates lied about his relationship with Epstein multiple times. Would it really surprise anyone that the billionaire philanthropist under heat for conducting illegal medical trials on vulnerable groups in India and other countries was involved in other nefarious and grotesque activities involving children?
- chiefalchemist 5y agoFine. Then use those sourses. But axe to grind ex-wife on softball CBS news is shite. If there's better then that's the standard. But this pseudo TMZ stuff doesn't belong here regardless of how many hatreds love the storyline.
- encryptluks2 5y agoWhat axe does she have to grind exactly? She has distanced herself from Bill due to his relationship with Epstein. It is known, and there are pictures and documents verifying this and of Gates flying on Epstein's Lolita Express. Gates continued his relationship with Epstein after he was convicted, and also lied about his relationship with him. This is like Prince Andrew trying to say he didn't sweat at the time.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoThe guy cheated on her. Ffs Stop being so naive.
- chirau 5y agoI think she was complacent or at least had no opinion of it until the case blew up. Did she ever tell him not to hang out with Epstein anymore and he refused? It's an easy narrative for her to give now, but I don't buy it. I am disappointed in Bill. I am actually a beneficiary of their scholarship, for college. At the same time, I think this is Melinda playing the blame game.
- CPLX 5y ago> Did she ever tell him not to hang out with Epstein anymore and he refused? Apparently yes. Numerous media reports have said that he had promised not to engage with Epstein any more, and that the event that suddenly precipitated the divorce was a revelation in the New York Times that Bill had been breaking that promise.
- ksec 5y ago>Bill had been breaking that promise. Does that implies Melinda knew what Epstein was up to?
- spoondan 5y agoThere’s no need to speculate that Melinda had special knowledge. Epstein was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution in 2008 and was subsequently a registered sex offender. Bill admits to attending dinners with Epstein until 2011.
- ksec 5y agoSorry I wasn't aware of that. I thought it was a very recent thing.
- CPLX 5y agoBy the time under discussion Epstein had been convicted in a US court for a crime involving sex with an underage girl, and was a widely famous and notorious media figure.
- 5y ago
- throwaway5486nv 5y agoMy theory is lot of tech people knew Epstein due to his interest in transhumanism and cryonics. Melinda is pretty pissed on Bill due to his affair and using this to taint his image. I am not saying Bill is good guy, there is simply no evidence but there the accuser has motivation to taint Bill's image.
- CPLX 5y agoThere is extensive evidence that Bill Gates had a close relationship with a serial criminal pedophile, sex trafficker, and rapist. It’s all pretty out in public at this point. How would your wife feel if that statement could be made about you?
- throwaway5486nv 5y ago> There is extensive evidence that Bill Gates had a close relationship with a serial criminal pedophile, sex trafficker, and rapist. It’s all pretty out in public at this point. Citation Please > How would your wife feel if that statement could be made about you? Well that's understandable if its true.
- CPLX 5y ago> Citation Please https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-... The publication of this article has been reported as the event that precipitated the divorce filing.
- throwaway5486nv 5y agoBill's Guilty. Considering Bill's intellect there can be no benefit of doubt. Thanks for the citation.
- anders_p 5y agoI was already known that Epstein had a criminal conviction for involvement in underage prostitution from 2008. So anyone associating with him after 2008 should not have the benefit of doubt. I can fully understand why someone like Melinda did not approve of her husband having any sort of relationship with Epstein.
- aaron695 5y ago
- c-linkage 5y agoOff topic: Is there somewhere that explains why this article was flagged? In the few minutes it took me to scan down the front page to the time I clicked on this story the link was flagged. I'm interested to know which specific guidelines were violated.
- jacobwg 5y agoFlags come from users submitting them (after a certain level of karma you can flag posts). There won’t be a canonical “why” since it’s essentially whatever the community considers flag-worthy.
- bradlys 5y agoYou can flag for any reason. If you don’t want to have this topic even be discussed - you can flag it. I think that’s a common reason why people do it. It’s about the only kind of “downvote” you get as far as stories go.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- senadra 5y agoThe first thing that Melinda did was to Remove the money from the foundations in order to put that directly into her (and then her children) pockets. That's the actual objective of the whole story: she wants the money, for herself, and her children. But Bill Gates had already pledged that money to charity. So she had to find a good excuse to get the money out. This is it. Of course, once you divorce and become the richest woman on Earth, just from being married to the right guy, it's bound to attract scrutiny, so let's find a good escape and scapegoat. And in these days and age, what's better than blaming a rich white male, favorite scape goat of our times with zero redeeming chances on the horizon, not even after pledging his entire fortune to charity ! So here we are : Bill "had an affair", 20 years ago. Yeah. But somehow, this is now that it's horrible to recall. Maybe the period coincides with the monopoly trial. Likely a tense situation. But who cares. Bill "knew Jeffrey Epstein". Sure, these days, it's an absolute sure blow. Well, Epstein also knew essentially everybody with money and power in US, but hey, no, let's phrase that as if it was a personal and deep connection, like, probably he was providing some under-aged "services" to her husband. Sure, she never said that. Just implied. Deniably. And while the word is occupied blaming a rich white male, the world does not get to see that charity organizations now have 50 B$ less to use over the next few decades, so that a poor, poor, horribly traumatized but now Extremely Rich white woman can scam away with the money and transmit it tax free to her children through multiple offshore expert schemes. But hey, that's not the story ! Too booooring ! Look, look ! Epstein here !
- selfportrait 5y agoHow did you go from reading a story about one of the richest men kindling a connection with a prolific child trafficker to twisting this into a reactionary incel narrative about the “oppression of the white man” and the “injustice of divorce court” for the poor billionaire with the best lawyers?