Bill Gates affair row: Who is Mila Antonova, the Russian bridge player involved in alleged affair with Microsoft Co-founder?

Produced by: Prashanti Moktan
Designed by: Mohsin Shaikh

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates had an alleged affair with Mila Antonova. News of their alleged affair in the past surfaced online after a Wall Street Journal report claimed a connection with Jeffrey Epstein, the infamous financier charged with sex trafficking

Bill Gates affair row

Mila Antonova is a bridge player from Russia, whose alleged affair with Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates has made headlines. Mila has refused to comment on her alleged affair with Gates

Who is Mila Antonova?

Bill Gates and Mila Antonova reportedly met at a bridge tournament in 2010. Gates and Mila allegedly had an affair around the same time. At the time, Bill Gates was still married to Melinda Gates

Bill Gates, Mila Antonova

Mila Antonova had shared a video on YouTube where she had mentioned meeting Bill Gates at the tournament. In the video, Mila said, “I didn’t beat him, but I tried to kick him with my leg.”

Mila Antonova’s YouTube
video mentions Gates

The billionaire is said to have connected with Mila Antonova over their shared interest in the game bridge. Mila was reportedly in her 20s when she met Gates, who was already in his 50s in 2010

Bill Gates and Mila
Antonova affair rumours

Jeffrey Epstein reportedly met Mila Antonova around 2013 when the latter was looking to fund an online bridge platform. Epstein reportedly paid the fees for a software coding school course that Mila took up

Jeffrey Epstein and
Mila Antonova

In 2017, Jeffrey Epstein emailed Bill Gates to reimburse him for Mila Antonova’s  coding school course he had initially paid for, according to the Wall Street Journal. This email reportedly had ‘blackmailing undertones’ with Epstein seeming to imply that he knew about Gates and Mila’s affair and could expose it if he did not comply

Jeffrey Epstein
blackmails Bill Gates

The ‘blackmail’ by email ruse was reportedly after Bill Gates refused to be associated with a ‘multibillion dollar charity fund’ that Jeffrey Epstein reportedly wanted to start with JPMorgan Chase. As per the WSJ report, Epstein had also lied to the bank that he was a close associate of Bill Gates. Jeffrey Epstein

Epstein’s ‘multibillion dollar
charity fund’ with JPMorgan

A spokesperson for Bill Gates told WSJ that Gates and Jeffrey Epstein met solely for ‘philanthropic purposes’ and the latter tried leveraging ‘a past relationship’ to threaten Gates

Bill Gates denies
connection with Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein was a financier and registered sex offender charged by federal prosecutors for sex trafficking a minor and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. He denied the charges but was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. In his lifetime, Epstein was known to be reportedly associated with famous personalities including Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Kevin Spacey among others

Who is Jeffrey Epstein?