Did Bill Gates send 'flirtatious, inappropriate' emails to female employee? Microsoft reveals
Microsoft executives asked Bill Gates in 2008 to cease sending amorous emails to a female employee, but the case was dropped once he agreed, according to the company. After the business uncovered questionable emails to a mid-level employee, Brad Smith, then Microsoft's general counsel and now its president and vice-chair, and another official met with Gates, according to the Wall Street Journal. According to the publication, Gates did not deny the emails, and members of the Microsoft board of directors who were informed on them declined to take any further action because Gates and the employee did not have any physical contact.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment on Monday other than to acknowledge the Journal's allegation. Smith did not respond to a request for comment via the company. “These assertions are untrue, repeated rumours from people who have no direct knowledge, and in some cases have severe conflicts of interest,” Gates' private office stated in a written statement. It declined to comment further. The claimed 2008 warning came more than a decade before similar alleged behaviour prompted the tech company to employ a law firm in 2019 to investigate a letter from an engineer alleging a long-term sexual relationship with Gates.
That probe began before Gates' departure from Microsoft's board of directors last year, but it wasn't made public until May, when Bill and Melinda French Gates announced their 27-year marriage was ending. In August, the divorce was finalised. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is still operated by the former spouses. Gates served as CEO of Microsoft until 2000, after which he gradually reduced his role in the company he co-founded with Paul Allen in 1975. In 2008, he left his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft and became chairman of the board of directors, a position he held until 2014. According to Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw, the 2008 warning from company leaders occurred.
