Women seeking jobs at Bill Gates’ private office were asked sexually explicit questions: Report

In a shocking revelation, women who applied for positions at Bill Gates’ private office, Gates Ventures, seeking jobs claim that they were asked sexually explicit questions during the interviews, as per a new report.

Some of the female job seekers were asked whether they ever engaged in extramarital affairs or had ever contracted an STD, had any nude photographs of themselves on their mobile phones or 'danced for dollar', according to the Wall Street Journal report.

The women were also pressed on the type of pornography they preferred and about their past drug use, the Journal reported.

A spokesperson for Gates Venture claimed that he was not aware of such questions being asked during the background verification process that was conducted by a third-party contractor.

"This line of questioning would be unacceptable and a violation of Gates Ventures’ agreement with the contractor," the publication quoted the spokesperson as saying. "We have never received information from any vendor or interviewee in our 15+ year history that inappropriate questions were asked during the screening process. We can confirm, that after a comprehensive review of our records, no employment offer has ever been rescinded based on information of this nature."

The publication said that none of the male candidates that work at Gates' private office had been asked about their sexual history.

The job applicants, in a conversation with The Journal, said that the interview was carried out by security consulting firm Concentric Advisors, that according to its website, claims to conduct “intelligence-led” risk assessments for corporations, governments and non-profit organisations.

Concentric told the publication that it had complied with applicable laws and that the questions were posed to analyse the job applicants' "truthfulness and vulnerability to blackmail, which often starts with voluntary statements by the candidate with follow-up questions by company interviewers."

Epstein threatened Gates, tried to blackmail overaffair with Russian woman

The Microsoft cofounder in the past has himself come under fire for his meeting with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who as per WSJ reports, had threatened to expose an extramarital affair that Gates had with a Russian bridge player.

Gates met a woman named Mila Antonova in the year 2010 when she was in her 20s and engaged in a romantic relationship. The two were involved while Gates was still married to his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, as per WSJ reports.

Epstein met Antonova three years later in 2013 and paid for her to attend software coding school. She was looking for financial backers for a bridge academy and Boris Nikolic, a top adviser to Gates at the time, pointed her to Epstein.

Later, in 2017, Epstein, who had learned about the affair, brazenly emailed Gates and requested reimbursement for the course. It was an implicit yet subtle threat from Epstein that he knew about Gates' business.

“The tone of the message was that Epstein knew about the affair and could expose it, the people said,” the Journal reported, adding that a Gates spokesperson said that the Microsoft founder “had no financial dealings with Epstein”.

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