{"id":484885,"date":"2026-02-19T08:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/484885\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T08:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:34:07","slug":"bill-gates-cancels-keynote-speech-in-india-amid-questions-over-epstein-ties-bill-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/484885\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates cancels keynote speech in India amid questions over Epstein ties | Bill Gates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Gates has pulled out of a keynote address at the AI Impact Summit in India as he continues to face questions over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The billionaire Microsoft co-founder travelled to India<\/a>, where his foundation works with the government on delivering AI for social good, earlier this week and was advertised as speaking at the international summit shortly after the country\u2019s prime minister, Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n

But Gates suddenly withdrew on Thursday morning, hours before he was due to address delegates, including the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and India\u2019s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.<\/p>\n

The Gates Foundation said in a statement: \u201cAfter careful consideration and to ensure the focus remains on the AI summit\u2019s key priorities, Mr Gates will not be delivering his keynote address..\u201d<\/p>\n

The move came less than 48 hours after the Gates Foundation had insisted: \u201cBill Gates is attending the AI Impact Summit. He will be delivering his keynote as scheduled.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his foundation did not explicitly address what Gates feared might distract from the intended focus of the summit, the latest release<\/a> of Epstein files in late January intensified the controversy surrounding his ties to the disgraced financier.<\/p>\n

Gates has said he \u201cregrets\u201d ever knowing Epstein<\/a> after allegations that he hid a sexually transmitted disease from his then-wife after contact with \u201cRussian girls\u201d surfaced in the latest release<\/a> of the Epstein files.<\/p>\n

He has denied the claim, which appeared in a draft email written by Epstein, as \u201cfalse\u201d, and apologised for his interactions with his former associate. \u201cEvery minute I spent with him, I regret,\u201d Gates, 70, told Australian news outlet 9News earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Epstein died by suicide by August 2019 in New York\u2019s Metropolitan correctional centre as he awaited trial on sexual abuse trafficking charges. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty<\/a> to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor, and served 13 months of an 18-month sentence.<\/p>\n

Melinda French Gates, to whom Gates was married until 2021, described how the recent release of Epstein files brought back \u201cmemories of some very, very painful times in my marriage\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever questions remain there of what \u2013 I can\u2019t even begin to know all of it \u2013 those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband,\u201d French Gates told NPR. \u201cThey need to answer to those things, not me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gates Foundation stressed on Thursday it \u201cremains fully committed to our work in India to advance our shared health and development goals\u201d, and would be represented by Ankur Vora, president of its Africa and India offices, at the summit.<\/p>\n

The AI summit in Delhi is also due to hear from the chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, the chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai and the White House AI adviser Sriram Krishnan. The UK is represented by the deputy prime minister, David Lammy, and the AI minister, Kanishka Narayan.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, former UK chancellor George Osborne<\/a> said countries that do not embrace the kind of powerful AI systems made by his new employer, OpenAI, risk \u201cFomo\u201d and could be left weaker and poorer<\/a>. He warned the summit audience: \u201cDon\u2019t be left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also speaking at the summit was Rishi Sunak, the former UK prime minister, who now advises one of OpenAI\u2019s main rivals, Anthropic, and Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Sunak urged political leaders to take bolder steps to lead the rollout of AI, saying: \u201cIf you are a prime minister you can only do a few things that you drive personally, and this has to be one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a different kind of warning, the UN chief, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, urged technology leaders at the summit that the future of AI cannot be left to \u201cthe whims of a few billionaires\u201d.<\/p>\n

Guterres called on tech tycoons to support a $3bn global fund to ensure open access to the fast-advancing technology for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Gates has pulled out of a keynote address at the AI Impact Summit in India as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-484885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}