Bill Gates testifies before the US House Oversight Committee in a transcribed interview about his past relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying he “never victimised anyone.” Multiple outlets report that Gates denies wrongdoing as lawmakers question him over his ties to Epstein. He also characterises his contact with Epstein as an error in judgment, with several reports describing his position that the meetings were related to philanthropic or business matters. According to Deutsche Welle, Gates says Epstein was “working to use information” about Gates’s extramarital affairs, indicating that Epstein exploited personal information. Other reporting notes that Gates voluntarily appears and that the testimony is part of the committee’s broader inquiry, which has included other high-profile figures such as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Epstein died in 2019 in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges involving underage girls. The accounts in the articles focus on Gates’s statements during testimony rather than on new allegations or outcomes from the hearing.