• In October, when the relationship between the two burst into public view, French Gates was unhappy, so she hired divorce lawyers, setting in motion a process that culminated with the announcement of their divorce.

Bill Gates quit the Microsoft Corp. board in 2020 over an inappropriate relationship with a female employee, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

The board members pressured Gates to step down as they began an investigation in 2019 after a female engineer working for the firm had alleged in a letter that she had a sexual relationship over years with Gates, the Journal reported, citing people close to the matter.

During the investigation, some board members decided Gates should no longer sit as a director at the software company he started and led for decades, the people said.

“Microsoft Corp. board members decided that Bill Gates needed to step down from its board in 2020 as they pursued an investigation into the billionaire’s prior romantic relationship with a female Microsoft employee that was deemed inappropriate.”

A Microsoft spokesman also said, “Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000.”

“A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern.”

Meanwhile, Bridgitt Arnold, a spokeswoman for Gates, said, “There was an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably,” noting, “Gates’s decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter.”

Gates quit the Microsoft board to focus more on his philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Arnold added

“He had expressed an interest in spending more time on his philanthropy starting several years earlier.”

Gates and his wife Melinda French, who co-founded their charity to fight global poverty and disease, announced earlier this month that they were ending their marriage after 27 years.

In a joint statement posted on Twitter, the couple said, “We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.”

In a divorce petition, Melinda said their marriage was “irretrievably broken.”

Although the couple has not said what prompted the divorce, one source of concern for French Gates was her husband’s dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to the Journal.

A spokeswoman for Gates said in 2019 that he met with Epstein for philanthropic reasons, but regretted doing so.

In October 2019, when the relationship between the two burst into public view, French Gates was unhappy, so she hired divorce lawyers, setting in motion a process that culminated with the announcement of their divorce. Credit: PressTV