Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has floated a conspiracy theory about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged involvement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation during his participation in the Joe Rogan Experience.
The former PayPal executive told the host that he had developed his own theory about why the Microsoft founder founded the nonprofit anti-poverty organization in 2000.
Rumors have been swirling since the couple divorced in 2021. Melinda reportedly received $76 billion from the settlement, before leaving the Foundation in June with a deal worth $12.5 billion.
Peter Thiel told Joe Rogan on an episode of the show that aired this week that he was convinced the Foundation itself was a ploy by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein rather than a prenup so that Bill Gates could avoid getting more in the divorce.
“My kind of straight-up ‘alternative’ conspiracy theory is… Bill and Melinda get married in 1994, they don’t sign a prenup and something goes wrong with the marriage and maybe Melinda can get half the money in a divorce. He doesn’t want her to have half the money. And what do you do?” he said on the show.
“The alternative plan is something like, you give the marital assets to a nonprofit and Melinda is then prevented from complaining about the marriage for a very long time. So there’s something in the left-wing philanthropic world that was kind of a Baby Boomer way of keeping their crazy wives in check, or something.”
Bill and Melinda Gates (pictured in 2018) announced their separation in 2021
PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel Appears on Episode 2190 of the Joe Rogan Experience
Rogan (pictured in another episode) wondered if the nonprofit was a way to “whitewash” his past
Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates and Bill and Boris Nikolic, scientific advisor to the Foundation, in 2011
During the conversation, Thiel referenced the relationship between Epstein and Bill Gates.
The couple are said to have met ‘multiple times‘ despite revelations about Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors since his first guilty plea in 2008.
Melinda Gates cited the “evil, horrible” relationship between Epstein and Bill as the reason for the divorce, telling CBS: “I didn’t like him having meetings with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Last year it was reported Epstein appeared to threaten and blackmail Bill Gates over an alleged affair.
Bill has since admitted that the meetings with the disgraced financier were a “big mistake.”
‘[Bill Gates] “I would have spoken to Epstein early on about how bad his marriage was and Epstein suggested he file for divorce, around 2010, 2011,” Thiel alleged, with no opposition from Rogan.
“And Gates told him something like, you know, that’s not quite right, probably because he didn’t have a prenup,” he continued.
‘So there’s a role where Epstein is a marriage counselor, which is quite disturbing.
“But the second thing Gates talked to Epstein about was the collaboration on financing and setting up this philanthropic, somewhat corrupt left-wing philanthropic structure.
“My simple alternative conspiracy theory is… let’s combine the two and there was…
‘Bill and Melinda get married in 1994, they don’t sign a prenuptial agreement and something goes wrong with the marriage. Maybe Melinda can get half the money in a divorce.
“He doesn’t want her to have half the money. And what do you do?”
Thiel, who was closed down by Melinda Gates last month for not doing enough charity work himself, he sensationally claimed that Bill had deliberately “locked” Melinda into the nonprofit to limit her access to his money.
He presented the conspiracy as an example of what he called the “left-wing philanthropic world” used by baby boomers as “a way to keep their crazy wives in check.”
“It’s a way to whitewash your past, right?” Joe Rogan replied.
There is no evidence that Thiel’s self-proclaimed “conspiracy theory” is correct.
Gates has admitted meeting with the financier and described the meetings as a “mistake.”
“I made a mistake by ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein. You know, maybe her [Melinda’s] “My instincts were sharper than mine,” he told the BBC in 2022.
“Every encounter I had with him could be seen as almost condoning his bad behavior. So that was a mistake.”
Melinda Gates announced in May 2024 that she would be leaving the Foundation, saying the move was part of her transition to “the next chapter of my philanthropy.”
The Gates Foundation is the largest private charity in the world, with an endowment of $75.2 billion (as of December 2023), according to its website.
In 2015, Melinda founded her own organization, Pivotal Ventures, which focuses on implementing innovative solutions to issues facing American women and families.
“Under the terms of my agreement with Bill, when I leave the foundation, I will receive an additional $12.5 billion to spend on my work on behalf of women and families.
“I’ll share more about what that will look like soon.”
Bill and Melinda met in 1987, the same year he became the world’s youngest billionaire at age 31.
They married in 1994 in Hawaii and had three children together: Jennifer, 28, Rory, 24, and Phoebe, 21.
Their divorce came amid rumors about Gates’ mixed love life, with him allegedly having an affair with a Russian bridge player and Jeffrey Epstein allegedly trying to blackmail him over the relationship.
Peter Thiel founded Confinity in 1998 (initially Fieldlink) before merging with Musk’s X.com
According to Forbes, Thiel is worth an estimated $8.4 billion today
Melinda Gates, then co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will participate in a 2023 panel in Washington on ‘Empowering Women as Entrepreneurs and Leaders’
The Microsoft founder claimed he never had a business relationship or friendship with Epstein and that their meetings were solely to discuss philanthropic projects.
After he announced his divorce from Melinda, Microsoft employees alleged that Gates had had sexual affairs with employees and journalists.
New York Times journalist Anupreeta Das alleges in a forthcoming book that Bill behaved “like a kid in a candy store” around young, attractive interns at the company, and that they were eventually forbidden to be alone with him.
The upcoming book, Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World, claims that Gates’ marriage reached a breaking point in 2019 when his connection to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein came to light.
After Bill’s connections to Epstein came to light in 2019 — and he claimed they were purely for philanthropic reasons — Melinda reportedly hired lawyers to help divide up their $150 billion.
Thiel, who has supported several right-wing causes in the past and has expressed support for Trump, has found himself aligned with Musk in the past support Republican campaigns.
Musk, who founded PayPal in 2000 by merging his X.com direct bank with Confinity, has clashed with Bill Gates in the past. He has been criticized for not giving away more of his fortune and is said to have criticized Gates’ philanthropy in yield.
Musk reportedly questioned Gates about why he had shorted Tesla’s stock, expecting its value to fall, to which Gates apologized.
Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson said that Musk nevertheless found Gates’ work on climate change hypocritical and that he “couldn’t take their climate philanthropy seriously.”
Musk subsequently mocked Gates’ appearance in a post on Twitter.