Bill Gates' leadership roles stay intact despite allegations

SEATTLE (AP) — Despite damaging allegations suggesting Bill Gates pursued women who worked for him, don't expect changes to his roles at the two iconic institutions he co-founded, Microsoft and his namesake philanthropic foundation.

Critics say the revelations raise accountability concerns, though it remains unclear how much the dent to Gates’ reputation might affect the institutions that are so closely associated with him.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says it is not investigating the allegations in the media, as the reported incident involving one of the world's largest, most influential nonprofits was made by “an anonymous former employee.”

“The foundation has never received any formal complaints regarding Bill Gates,” the spokesperson noted in a statement to AP. “When we do receive an allegation of misconduct, we take it very seriously, conduct an investigation, and take deliberate actions appropriate to the situation.”

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal over the weekend detailed Gates' reported behavior toward women, ranging from a full-blown affair at Microsoft to dismissiveness toward his now-estranged wife and foundation co-chair, Melinda French Gates, as well as asking out women who felt uncomfortable with his advances at both institutions.

Microsoft Corp. said the company hired a law firm in late 2019 to conduct an investigation after a Microsoft engineer alleged in a letter that she had a sexual relationship with Gates over several years.

Gates' private office spokesperson called it “an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably."

Microsoft spokesperson Frank X. Shaw this week declined to answer further questions about what the board concluded and why the investigation wasn’t previously disclosed. The company in March 2020 announced...