Warren Buffett revealed Tuesday that he has not spoken to Bill Gates since the release of the Epstein files, marking the most dramatic public rupture yet in one of the business world’s most celebrated friendships. The 95-year-old investor made the disclosure during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, telling anchor Becky Quick that he deliberately distanced himself from Gates to avoid any entanglement in the widening scandal surrounding the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Buffett’s reasoning was blunt. He said he does not want to be in a position where he knows things and could be called as a witness. The remarks, his first public comments about Gates since the Epstein documents surfaced, drew an immediate line between the Oracle of Omaha and the tech mogul who had been his closest philanthropic partner for decades.
The two billionaires share a history that stretches back more than three decades. According to Fortune, their friendship began in 1991, when Gates’ mother Mary invited her son to a gathering at her home that Buffett had been invited to by Washington Post editor Meg Greenfield. That relationship eventually led Buffett to donate more than $43 billion to the Gates Foundation since 2006, one of the largest philanthropic commitments in history. Together with Melinda French Gates, the pair co-founded The Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage the world’s wealthiest people to commit much of their wealth to charitable causes.
Yet signs of strain had been building for years. Buffett stepped down from the Gates Foundation’s board in 2021, following Gates’ announcement of his divorce. By 2024, he told The Wall Street Journal that no more of his money would be donated to the Gates Foundation following his death. That same year, Melinda French Gates left the foundation and launched her own philanthropic organization called Pivotal.
The Epstein revelations accelerated the fallout. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 18, 2025, by a vote of 427 to 1, with Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana casting the only dissenting vote. The Senate approved it unanimously the same day, and President Trump signed it into law on November 19, 2025, as Wikipedia’s entry on the Epstein files details. The Justice Department subsequently released more than 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents, which contained numerous emails between Gates and Epstein.
In January 2026, an additional 3 million pages were released by the DOJ, including 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to the case. Among the documents were two draft emails from July 2013 found in Epstein’s email account, addressed from Epstein to himself, containing unverified claims that Epstein facilitated sexual encounters for Gates and helped him obtain medication to conceal a sexually transmitted infection from his wife, CNN Politics reported.
Gates moved to address the crisis in February 2026, apologizing to Gates Foundation staff for his association with Epstein and admitting to having affairs with two Russian women, which Epstein learned of, as previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. At the same gathering, Gates maintained that he did nothing illicit and saw nothing illicit. He has said he was introduced to Epstein in 2011 and that his meetings were limited to dinners over the course of three years, adding that he never visited Epstein’s private island Little St. James, according to Global News.
Meanwhile, congressional scrutiny is intensifying. Gates accepted an invitation from the House Oversight Committee in early March 2026 to testify about his dealings with Epstein. A Gates spokesperson told Fox News that Gates’ transcribed interview before the committee, chaired by Representative James Comer of Kentucky, was scheduled for May 19, 2026. The committee called seven individuals to testify about ties to Epstein, including Gates, Leon Black, Kathryn Ruemmler, Lesley Groff, Sarah Kellen, Doug Band, and Ted Waitt.
Despite the rift, Buffett was not entirely without kind words for his former friend. He said Gates could have invited him to meet Epstein but did not, and he credited Gates for not making that introduction. Buffett confirmed he never met Epstein or had any contact with him, as CNN Business reported.
Buffett described Epstein as the “con man of all time” and expressed astonishment at how successful Epstein was at manipulating people. The characterization underscored the breadth of Epstein’s influence across elite circles — and the continuing reverberations of his crimes, even years after his death in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019.
For now, the silence between the two men — Buffett at 95, Gates at 70 — speaks louder than any statement. A friendship that once symbolized the promise of billionaire philanthropy has become yet another casualty of the Epstein affair, with no indication that either side intends to bridge the divide.
