Microsoft decided that Bill Gates should leave the board because of a previous relationship with an employee
During the investigation, some members of the board decided that it was no longer appropriate for Gates to sit as a director of the company.
Microsoft Corp. board members decided that Bill Gates needed to resign from his board in 2020 while conducting an investigation into the billionaire's previous romantic relationship with a Microsoft employee that was deemed inappropriate, people familiar with the matter said.
The board members handling the matter hired a law firm to conduct an investigation in late 2019 after a Microsoft engineer alleged in a letter that she had a years-long sexual relationship with Gates, the people said.
During the investigation, some board members decided it was no longer appropriate for Gates to sit as a director of the software company he started and led for decades, the people said. Gates resigned before the board's investigation was completed, another person familiar with the matter said.
"Microsoft received a concern in the second half of 2019 that Bill Gates was seeking to enter into an intimate relationship with a company employee in 2000," a Microsoft spokesperson said. “A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, with the help of an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided broad support to the employee who raised the concern. "
A spokeswoman for Mr. Gates said: "There was an affair almost 20 years ago that ended amicably." She said that “her decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter. In fact, she had expressed interest in spending more time on his philanthropy several years earlier. "
Gates resigned from Microsoft's board on March 13, 2020, three months after being re-elected to his job. In a press release submitted to regulators and a post on LinkedIn, the billionaire said that he wanted to focus on his philanthropy and that he would continue to serve as a technical advisor to CEO Satya Nadella. That same day, he also vacated his position on the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the conglomerate run by Gates' friend Warren Buffett.
Mr. Gates and his wife Melinda French Gates announced earlier this month that they would be ending their marriage after 27 years. In a joint statement posted on Twitter, the couple said: "We no longer believe that we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives." In a petition for divorce, Ms. French Gates said that her marriage was "irretrievably broken."
Ms. French Gates had been working with attorneys at various firms since at least 2019 to undo the marriage, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. The couple have not said what caused the separation. A source of concern for Ms. French Gates was her husband's dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Journal reported. A Gates spokeswoman said in 2019 that she met with Epstein for philanthropic reasons and regretted doing so.
Mr. Gates was CEO of Microsoft until 2000, chief software architect until 2006, and president until 2014. In recent years, Mr. Gates continued to serve on the board and as technical advisor to Mr. Nadella even as his focus changed. to his philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He continues to serve as a technical advisor to Mr. Nadella.
In April 2019, Microsoft said it would change its process for handling employee complaints of harassment and discrimination. The company also said at the time that it would add additional training and increase the number of human resources staff handling complaints, among other changes.
Nadella announced the changes after Microsoft women shared stories of sexual harassment and discrimination in an email chain within the company, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed. Quartz originally reported the email chain in 2019.
Microsoft's board members learned of the letter from the engineer in late 2019, which demanded changes to his job at Microsoft and also shared details of her relationship with Gates, people familiar with the matter said. Nadella and other top executives were aware of the woman's allegations, some of the people said.
Some board members asked about Gates' deals with Epstein, one of the people said. The board members were told that the relationship focused on philanthropy and nothing else, this person said.
In December 2019, prior to the end of the investigation, Mr. Gates was re-elected to Microsoft's board of directors at the annual shareholders meeting. As the matter cleared up, board members worried that Gates's relationship with the woman had been inappropriate and did not want a director associated with this situation in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the people said.
As part of her conversations with Microsoft, the employee asked Ms. French Gates to read her letter, people familiar with the matter said. It was not known whether Ms. French Gates read the letter.
A Harvard dropout, Mr. Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen and made it one of the largest companies in the world, making the couple two of the richest people on the planet. Mr. Gates married Melinda French, then a Microsoft employee, in January 1994.
Gates and his rival Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, became the faces most closely associated with the rise of personal computers. Microsoft and Apple Inc. now rank as the two largest public companies, with a market value of more than $ 1.8 trillion and $ 2.1 trillion, respectively.
"Microsoft will always be an important part of my life's work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company's ambitious goals," Gates wrote in the March 2020 LinkedIn post. announcing his departure from the board.
By 2020, the Gates were already in discussions to divide their vast wealth and legal teams on both sides were in private talks with a mediator to resolve a separation, the Journal previously reported.
The May 3 divorce filing says the couple had agreed to a separation contract to divide their assets, a fortune estimated at $ 130 billion by Forbes. The Gates have said they would give away most of their wealth and have donated more than $ 36 billion to the Gates Foundation over the years. The couple said they planned to remain co-chairs of the foundation and jointly lead it after their divorce.
