Published Feb 16, 2026 | 5:40 PM ⚊ Updated Feb 16, 2026 | 5:41 PM
(LTR) Andhra Pradesh IT Minister N Lokesh, philanthropist Bill Gates, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Dy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan.
Synopsis: Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates’ visit to Andhra Pradesh on Monday has sparked controversy, with the Chandrababu Naidu-led NDA government criticised for engaging with him given his past association with Jeffrey Epstein. The Microsoft co-founder was in the state to discuss the work of the Gates Foundation. The visit has also renewed criticism of the foundation’s controversial record in healthcare and poverty interventions.
American billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates received a royal welcome in Andhra Pradesh from Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and several cabinet members on Monday, 16 February. The Microsoft co-founder was in the state to discuss the work of the Gates Foundation. But his visit drew swift condemnation because of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Bill Gates is in India. In 2024, he said that India ‘is kind of a laboratory to try things that then when you prove them out in India, you can take to other places.’ He thinks of us Indians as lab rats and guinea pigs. He has recently been at the centre of the Epstein scandal. In 2011, Epstein was discussing with Bill Gates ‘How do we get rid of poor people as a whole?’ Bill Gates was discussing pandemic simulations with Epstein in 2017, three years before the pandemic began. So yeah, welcome back ‘Mr.’ Gates!” wrote Pawan Khera, CWC Working Committee member and Chairman of the AICC media and publicity department.
“Naidu welcomes child molester Epstein’s bestie, Bill Gates. Bill’s wife is on record saying her divorce was because of the friendship with this scum. Hope the people of Andhra Pradesh are extra vigilant when they send their kids out,” wrote senior journalist and academic Radha Krishnan PK.
The Gates Foundation is also set to be a prominent feature at the Union Government’s India AI Impact Summit 2026, which began on Monday.
Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy American financier who became the central figure in one of the biggest sex-trafficking cases in recent US history.
His list of connections spanned some of the most powerful and well-known figures across media, cinema, business, politics, academia, and more across the world.
In 2008, he pleaded guilty in Florida to procuring a minor for prostitution and served 13 months in jail under a highly controversial plea deal that granted him immunity from federal prosecution at the time.
In July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York charged him with sex trafficking of minors, alleging he operated a scheme in which dozens of girls, some as young as 14, were abused at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach between 2002 and 2005.
Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial; his death was ruled a suicide.
The relationship between Gates and Epstein first came to public light in 2019 after Epstein’s second arrest.
Gates met with Epstein after his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution. The two met on multiple occasions starting in 2011, according to the New York Times.
At the time, Gates denied any impropriety and told the paper that he “regrets ever meeting with [Epstein]” and that they only ever discussed philanthropy.
“I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge,” Gates told CNN. “When it looked like that wasn’t a real thing, that relationship ended.”
Two years later, while divorce proceedings between Gates and his then wife Melinda were ongoing, a former employee of the Gates Foundation told the Wall Street Journal that Melinda told her husband she was uncomfortable with Epstein after the couple met him together in 2013.
Epstein also reportedly gave Gates “advice on ending his toxic marriage” between 2011 and 2014. The report added that Gates used Epstein’s mansion as an escape from the marriage and that Gates and Epstein “were very close.”
Beginning in 2025, the United States Department of Justice began releasing documents relating to the Epstein case, dubbed the “Epstein files”. The documents include email exchanges, photographs, and more.
One email exchange suggests that Epstein and Bill Gates discussed “get rid of poor people”.
The files also suggest that Gates contracted a sexually transmitted disease after visiting Epstein’s island. Images released by the DOJ also show Gates posing with alleged victims of sex trafficking.
Moreover, a fresh tranche of the Epstein files released on Monday, suggested that among the many victims was a girl of Indian origin.
The Gates Foundation is a private foundation set up by Gates and his former wife, Melinda Gates, to “enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty”.
From the start, the organisation has faced criticism for its outsized role in shaping policy agendas in countries across the global South. Critics say it prioritises the interests of large pharmaceutical and agribusiness companies over those of people in developing countries.
Although philanthropic, the foundation previously owned shares in pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer. As of its latest filings with US Securities Exchange Commission, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which manages the foundation’s endowment and investments still owns shares in companies within the pharmaceutical and related healthcare sectors.
The foundation has also been accused of awarding grants on the basis of social connections and ideological allegiance rather than formal external review or technical competence.
Last December, Gates’ remark on a podcast that India was “a kind of laboratory to try things. When proven in India, they can then be taken to other places” drew condemnation, with critics citing it as evidence of the foundation’s attitude towards the global South.
In 2009, the American NGO PATH conducted a clinical trial of a cervical cancer vaccine on 14,000 tribal schoolgirls aged 9–14 across Telangana and Gujarat.
The trial was funded by the Gates Foundation and carried out with the Indian Council of Medical Research. Five girls later died of unrelated causes.
In 2013, a parliamentary panel said the trial had several shortcomings and ethical lapses. It said that, rather than protecting women’s health, PATH was a willing tool of foreign drug companies seeking to persuade the Indian government to include the HPV vaccine in its universal immunisation programme, which the government is required to fund.
The Gates Foundation played a central role in developing and distributing Covid-19 vaccines. Politico reported that the foundation, along with three other groups, spent at least $8.3 million lobbying lawmakers and officials in the US and Europe for favourable vaccine policies.
Activists have accused the foundation of prioritising profits over the rapid distribution of life-saving vaccines, particularly to low-income countries in the global South.
The report also said officials from the US, the EU and the WHO moved into roles within these organisations, strengthening their political and financial ties in Washington and Brussels.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
