Billionaire Bill Gates regrets meeting Jeffrey Epstein: report

American business magnate Bill Gates has said it was a "huge mistake" that he met convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, clarifying that the gatherings were held only for his philanthropic initiatives, according to a media report on Friday.

Epstein, 66, was a well-know financier in the US, who in 2008 was convicted of engaging underage girls into prostitution. He has been accused of several other heinous crimes, including raping minor children. Epstein was found dead on August 10, 2019 while serving his jail sentence in New York, in a suspected suicide case.

Speaking to CNN, the 65-year-old founder of Microsoft said: "It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there."

Gates told CNN that he met Epstein in the hopes of raising funds for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge. When it looked like that wasn't a real thing, that relationship ended," he said.