Bill Gates is interviewed by Russian bridge player Mila Antonova in unearthed 2010 video
She already knew the answer, but Russian bridge connoisseur Mila Antonova asked the question to one of the most recognizable – and wealthy – men in the world anyway.
'Who are you?' she said from behind the camera at the National Bridge Tournament in Reno, Nevada in March 2010.
'Bill Gates,' he replied simply with a flirty little smile on his face, prompting her to giggle offscreen.
At the time Antonova was about 26, and ran BridgeUnion.com, a website devoted to the game.
Gates was 54, married and running one of the largest software companies in the world.
But despite his hectic schedule he found plenty of time to talk to the young Russian with the tiny website.
Russian bridge player Mila Antonova interviewed Bill Gates for her website BridgeUnion.com at the 2010 National Bridge Tournament in Reno, Nevada
Gates, who would've been 54 at the time, can be seen answering questions with a flirty smile while then-26-year-old grills him behind the camera
The video, made for Antonova's website, shows Gates highly engaged, listening and smiling as Antonova asks questions in her heavy Russian accent.
When Antonova asked how to play the game, Gates suggested people 'get online and find people' and to play other bridge style games.
Antonova asked: 'Do you think bridge helped you in your work?'
With a smirk, Gates replied: 'It helps you think in very concrete ways. I played a lot of card games when I was young. Bridge is the king of all card games.'
That seemingly innocent conversation now takes on greater significance since the revelation that the two had an affair and that shamed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein tried to blackmail the one-time richest man in the world by revealing its details.
Antonova and Gates had met previously. They had played the game in Washington, D.C. the previous year.
'I didn't beat him, I kicked him – with my leg,' she said later in a talk she gave about why people should play the card game.
Whether they had embarked on their brief affair by the time of the interview is not known.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Epstein met Antonova three years later and paid for her to go to coding school.
He also somehow learned about the affair and later used that knowledge to threaten the Microsoft boss.
In another YouTube video from 2010, Antonova discussed meeting Bill Gates that year and displayed a picture of the pair together
The bridge teacher, who was advocating for the benefits of playing the card game, had met Gates at the NABC one year prior
Gates was seen posing with young bridge players at a
The claims were made in a blockbuster weekend report which shed new light on Gates's alleged infidelities during his 27-year marriage to Melinda French Gates.
The two men had met several times in the early 2010s to discuss philanthropic ventures.
When Gates declined to join one of Epstein's funds, the late pedophile emailed him asking him to refund the cost of Anatova's schooling, even though he could easily have afforded it himself.
'The sum was immaterial for the two men and the tone of the message was that Epstein knew about the affair and could expose it,' the Journal reported.
A spokeswoman for Gates insisted his dealings with Epstein were 'solely for philanthropic purposes'.
'Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,' she added.
Gates, now 67, learned bridge from his parents and the card game became one of his favorite hobbies.
Gates's love of the card game has been widely publicized. He is pictured playing an intense game at the North American Bridge Championships in the early 2000s
The billionaire tech mogul, who was married to Melinda Gates but has since divorced, was 55 at the time of the alleged affair . Antonova meanwhile was in her 20s
In a separate online talk from 2010, which is also online, Anatova praised Gates as an 'avid' bridge player and talked about how big of a fan of the game he was.
Antonova joked that when she told friends she was meeting Gates two years before 'nobody believed me'.
She said that bridge was a partnership and quoted the late actress Mae West: 'Bridge is like sex: if you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.'
Antonova attended a university in Russia between 2000 and 2005 and is now working as a software engineer in the San Francisco area, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Under her interests she lists 'Bill Gates'.
During that time period Epstein and Gates's friendship bloomed and from 2011 the Microsoft founder met the pedophile more than six times including dinners at his New York townhouse.
Antonova was introduced to Epstein by Boris Nikolic, a Gates confidant and top science adviser at the time, because she wanted to raise money for an online business to teach people to play bridge.
Pictured: Jes Staley, Larry Summers, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates and Boris Nikolic. Nikolic in the right of the frame was an advisor to Gates and the person who introduced Mila Antonova to Epstein in 2013 when she was trying to raise funds for an online bridge platform
Starting in 2011 Gates met with Epstein multiple times. Gates attended dinners at Epstein's house in New York City (pictured), the Wall Street Journal reported
Epstein had been trying to get up a multi-billion-dollar charitable fund with JP Morgan and it hinged on getting support from Gates, but he wasn't interested.
That's when Epstein – who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on numerous counts of sex trafficking – sent his threatening email, according to the Journal.
The contents of the email were not included in the report.
Gates and his wife French Gates separated over his supposed infidelity and his friendship with Epstein, which appalled her.
He has been accused of having a years-long affair with a Microsoft employee and pursued several other staff, claims which led to him being forced off the company's board.
It is unclear if French Gates, 58, knew about the affair with Antonova when she divorced her former husband in 2021.
They had three children together and carved up their £93bn combined wealth when they broke up.
In an interview after the split, French Gates said that she told Gates that Epstein was 'evil personified', but he still met with him.
Mila Antonova (right) is pictured attending a different bridge tournament in 2013, the same year she met with Epstein to discuss the funding of her venture BridgePlanet
Reports at the time claimed that Gates turned to Epstein for advice about his 'toxic' marriage – and the late pedophile counseled him to get a divorce.
The New York Times claimed that in 2006 after hearing a presentation by a female Microsoft employee Gates, who at the time was the company chairman, walked out and immediately emailed the woman to ask her on a date.
Gates wrote to her: 'If this makes you uncomfortable, pretend it never happened'.
Gates flew on Epstein's private jet, nicknamed the 'Lolita Express' and he once remarked that the financiers' 'lifestyle is different and kind of intriguing' but wasn't for him.
Antonova, now 39, did not respond to requests for comment.
She told the Journal: 'I had no idea that he (Epstein) was a criminal or had any ulterior motive. I just thought he was a successful businessman and wanted to help. I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did'.
Source: Daily Mail
