Opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof has featured Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation in a series of columns up to December 2025, even though the philanthropist’s past meetings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been reported by the New York Times since 2019.
Kristof’s pieces have highlighted the foundation’s role in reducing child mortality and combating disease, but they have consistently avoided reference to Gates’s documented relationship with Epstein. This pattern of omission is notable because the newspaper’s news desk has covered the Gates‑Epstein connection in detail.
Omissions amid advocacy
In February 2025 Kristof wrote a column on the exploitation of women by Epstein, titled “What Trafficked Girls Think of Jeffrey Epstein and His Pals.” The article made no mention of Gates, despite the fact that the Times broke the story of their association six years earlier.
Kristof has also praised the Gates Foundation as a model for humanitarian work in his 2015 book A Path Appears, where he asserted that the foundation’s “investments save lives at a cost of $2,000 each.”
During the COVID‑19 pandemic he quoted Gates warning that “this virus could be a ‘once-in-a-century pandemic,’” without addressing the billionaire’s personal controversies.
In a December 2025 column Kristof cited the foundation’s data on child mortality, writing that “the number of children worldwide dying before the age of 5 is believed to have risen, by about 200,000, according to the Gates Foundation.”
Broader praise and personal details
Kristof’s admiration extended beyond policy. He praised the Gateses’ marriage in columns from 2015 and 2019, describing their “pillow talk” about philanthropy and noting that Bill Gates drove his children to school even after the couple’s 2021 separation, which had been linked to concerns over Epstein.
Reactions and institutional response
The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2025 that revelations about Gates’s ties to Epstein had “shattered” his carefully cultivated public image, citing testimony that Epstein had tried to blackmail Gates over his infidelities. Gates now describes the association as a “grave error of judgment.”
Following a Washington Free Beacon analysis that revealed Kristof failed to disclose $100,000 in campaign donations from the Gateses during his 2022 Oregon gubernatorial bid, the New York Times issued a statement to Fox News that “editors from Times Opinion are reviewing” the columnist’s work “to determine further clarifications for readers.” The paper also acknowledged that “previous political donations made by some people Nick Kristof mentioned in his columns should have been made more clear to readers.”
The story was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.