Bill Gates has pulled out of the keynote address at the AI Impact Summit in India as he faces questions over his ties to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The billionaire Microsoft co-founder traveled to India earlier this week, where his foundation works with the government on providing AI for social good, and was touted as speaking at an international summit shortly after the country’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But Gates abruptly withdrew on Thursday morning, hours before he was to address delegates including French President Emmanuel Macron and India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.
The Gates Foundation said in a statement: “After careful consideration and to ensure that the focus remains on the key priorities of the AI Summit, Mr. Gates will not deliver his keynote address.”
The move comes less than 48 hours after the Gates Foundation insisted: “Bill Gates is attending the AI Impact Summit. He will deliver his keynote address as scheduled.”
Although his foundation did not explicitly state that Gates feared it would distract from the summit’s intended focus, the latest release of the Epstein files in late January intensified the controversy over his ties to the disgraced financier.
Gates has said he “regrets” knowing about Epstein after the latest release of the Epstein files revealed contacts with “Russian girls” amid allegations he hid a sexually transmitted disease from his then-wife.
He has denied the claim, which appeared in draft emails written by Epstein, calling it “false” and apologized for his conversations with his former colleague. “I regret every minute I spent with her,” Gates, 70, told Australian news outlet 9News earlier this month.
Epstein died by suicide in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Facility in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sexual abuse, trafficking charges. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor in Florida and served 13 months of an 18-month sentence.
Melinda French, to whom Gates was married until 2021, described how the recent release of the Epstein files brought back “memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage”.
“Whatever questions remain — I can’t even begin to know it all — those are questions for those people and even for my ex-husband,” French Gates told NPR. “They need to answer to those things, not me.”
The Gates Foundation on Thursday stressed that it is “fully committed to our work in India to advance our shared health and development goals”, and will be represented at the summit by Ankur Vora, chair of its Africa and India offices.
The AI summit in Delhi is also scheduled to hear from OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and White House AI adviser Sriram Krishnan. The UK is represented by the Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, and the AI Minister, Kanishka Narayan.
On Wednesday, former British Chancellor George Osborne said countries that don’t adopt powerful AI systems created by his new employer, OpenAI, risk “fomo” and could be left weaker and poorer. He warned the summit audience: “Don’t be left behind.”
Also speaking at the summit was former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who now advises Anthropic and Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s main rivals.
Sunak urged political leaders to take bold steps to lead the rollout of AI, saying: “If you’re a Prime Minister there are only a few things you can do personally, and this should be one of them.”
In a separate warning, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged technology leaders at the summit that the future of AI cannot be left to the “whims of a few billionaires”.
Guterres called on tech giants to support a $3 billion global fund to ensure open access to fast-advancing technology for all.
