Bill Gates has admitted via a spokeswoman that he had an extramarital affair 20 years ago with a Microsoft employee that was investigated by Microsoft.
According to details, the affair ended ‘amicably’ and is not connected to his decision to step down from the company’s board.
The company’s board did an investigation into the affair after a female employee sent a letter in 2019 alleging that she and Gates had a ‘sexual relationship’ over the years.
“Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000,” Shaw said in an emailed statement.
“A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern.”
It is not clear what role the investigation or the affair played in the decision of Gates and his wife, Melinda French Gates divorce after 27 years of marriage. The couple announced their divorce earlier this month.
Read more – Bill Gates quits Microsoft board of directors
In a divorce filing that day, French Gates called the marriage “irretrievably broken.”
French Gates’s divorce lawyer, Robert Cohen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gates is ranked as the fourth on the list of the world’s wealthiest people. Forbes estimates Gates’s net worth at $128.3 billion.
