Gates exits India AI summit amid Epstein controversy

NEW DELHI (MNTV) – Bill Gates abruptly cancelled his keynote address at India’s AI Impact Summit on Thursday, just hours before he was scheduled to speak.

The Gates Foundation cited a desire to keep “focus on the summit’s key priorities” as the reason for his withdrawal, with a foundation executive stepping in as a replacement.

The five-day New Delhi gathering was designed to position India as a major player in the global AI race, with Prime Minister Modi projecting over $200 billion in incoming investment.

French President Macron and Brazil’s Lula da Silva were among the high-profile attendees.

Instead of generating buzz around India’s tech ambitions, however, the event became mired in controversy.

Gates’s exit stems from renewed attention to his connections with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Documents released by the US Justice Department in January included a draft email in which Epstein made damaging allegations about Gates — claims the Gates Foundation denies as “absurd and completely false.”

The Epstein files have proven broadly uncomfortable for India’s government.

One email references Modi’s 2017 Israel visit in suggestive terms, implying US influence over the trip — a charge India’s foreign ministry dismissed as the “trashy ruminations of a convicted criminal.”

Separately, Oil Minister Hardeep Puri’s extensive email correspondence with Epstein has drawn scrutiny, with opposition figures arguing it points to a closer relationship than Puri has acknowledged.

Beyond the Gates episode, the summit faced additional embarrassments. A university was ejected after exhibiting a commercially available Chinese robot it falsely claimed to have built.

Opening-day logistics were chaotic, with long queues and road closures frustrating attendees, and wearable devices were reportedly stolen from an exhibitor’s booth, leading to two arrests.