Bill Gates Withdraws from India AI Summit Amid Epstein-Related Scrutiny

Bill Gates pulled out of India’s AI Impact Summit just hours before his scheduled keynote on Thursday, amid renewed scrutiny over his past interactions with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following the release of U.S. Justice Department emails.

The sudden cancellation added to the challenges of the six-day summit, which has already faced organisational issues, traffic disruptions, and debates over the use of robots. Despite the setbacks, the event recorded over $200 billion in AI investment pledges, including a $110 billion initiative by Reliance Industries, while Tata Group signed a partnership deal with OpenAI.

The Gates Foundation stated that he would not deliver his address “to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities.” Only days earlier, the foundation had dismissed rumours about his absence, confirming he would attend. In his place, the foundation’s Chief Strategy Officer and Africa and India head, Ankur Vora, spoke at the summit.

A foundation representative did not comment on whether the withdrawal was linked to the Epstein emails, which showed communications between Epstein and Gates Foundation staff. Gates has previously maintained that his interactions with Epstein were strictly philanthropy-related and described meeting the convicted sex offender as a mistake.

Gates was scheduled to join other tech leaders at the summit, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. His absence came after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also cancelled earlier in the week, marking a rocky start for the first major AI forum in the Global South, where India aims to establish itself as a leader in global AI governance.