Bill Gates' Friend Warren Buffett Stopped Speaking with Him After Epstein Files: 'I Don't Want ... to Know Things'

Sam GilletteTue, March 31, 2026 at 6:38 PM UTC

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Jeffrey Epstein, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates.Credit: Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty; Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty; Bryan Bedder/Getty -

In an interview on March 31, Warren Buffett said that he hasn't talked to Bill Gates since the Microsoft co-founder appeared in the recently released Epstein files

“I don’t want to be in a position where I know things," the 95-year-old philanthropist said

Buffett has donated tens of millions of dollars to Gates' eponymous charity over the years

Warren Buffett said he was surprised by what he learned from the newly released Epstein files, including about his longtime friend, Bill Gates. As the co-founder of Microsoft waits to testify before Congress, Buffett said he has distanced himself in case he’s subpoenaed.

“I haven’t talked to him at all since the whole thing was unveiled,” the 95-year-old billionaire investor told CNBC on Tuesday, March 31, of his current relationship with Gates. “I don’t want to be in a position where I know things. At the moment, I could get called as a witness.”

Buffett said he never met Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in a New York prison in August 2019, while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges. After the U.S. Department of Justice began releasing files related to the investigation in December 2025, attention was drawn to Gates’ relationship with Epstein.

Gates has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and he has said that he met with Epstein solely for purposes of obtaining support for his global health philanthropy.

"Gates has acknowledged it was a serious error in judgment to meet with Epstein," a spokesperson for Bill Gates tells PEOPLE. "As he's stated before, he is committed to answering all questions and demonstrating that he was never a part of Epstein's criminal activity."

The cache of files included years-old draft emails Epstein wrote himself in which he alleged that Gates contracted a sexually transmitted infection from “Russian girls” and then asked for Epstein's help to hide it from his then-wife. While Gates initially denied all of the financier’s claims, he later confirmed that he had two affairs with Russian women while married to Melinda French Gates. At the same Gates Foundation town hall, he also apologized to staffers for his previous connections to Epstein, but was adamant that he did nothing “illicit.”

“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” the billionaire philanthropist, 70, told employees at his charity on Feb. 24, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Gates is one of several others who have been asked to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding the Epstein investigation, CBS News reported.

Many notable figures, including Gates, have been named in the Epstein files since they were released. During the CNBC interview, Buffett described Epstein numerous times as a “con man.”

“It’s astounding to me that anybody could be that successful as a con person,” he told the outlet.

“Men are going to like sex, and some of them are going to like not paying taxes, and whatever it was, he figured out what their weakness was, and then he would … prey on them,” Buffett continued. “But that doesn’t excuse the people on the other end.”

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Since 2006, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman has donated more than $43 billion to the Gates Foundation, according to CNBC. He resigned from the charity’s board as a trustee just weeks after the Gates couple announced their divorce, The New York Times reported.

“There was a lot I didn’t know. It was very clear I didn’t know a lot of things,” Buffett told CBNC of his time as a board trustee.

“I did not ask probing questions,” he continued. “If I thought I had to ask probing questions, I probably wouldn’t have put the money in in the first place.”

Buffett also said that Dr. Boris Nikolic, Gates’ past science adviser, “looked like a terrible guy to employ.” According to Bloomberg, Epstein used his friendship with Nikolic to try to lure Gates to his now-infamous island properties.

Gates has denied having ever gone to one of Epstein’s islands. BioIntel Venture Fund, where Nikolic is listed as a managing member, did not answer when contacted by PEOPLE.

In the wake of Gates’ connections to Epstein, Buffett thinks Congress may act as it did in the late 1960s, when the Ford Foundation and other nonprofits faced a House inquiry, the Times reported at the time.

“That was a big revision of what foundations could do,” the philanthropist told CNBC. “I think this is going to have the same effect.”

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Every June, Buffett normally makes his annual contribution to the Gates Foundation. This year, he’s biding his time.

“I’ll wait and see what unfolds,” he told the outlet, adding that he was unaware of the Gates’ marital problems. “The stock isn’t going any place.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”