Microsoft banned interns from being alone with ‘flirty’ Bill Gates: book

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was like a “kid in a candy store” when it came to young interns at the software company — forcing executives to forbid them from meeting alone with the billionaire, according to a sensational new book.

In an upcoming interview, New York Times journalist Anupreeta Das paints an unflattering portrait of one of the world’s richest men, revealing juicy details about his alleged infidelity that “long enraged his wife, Melinda French Gates.”

“Flirting with and courting women was not uncommon for Gates, who made unsolicited advances, such as inviting a Microsoft employee to dinner while he was still CEO,” Das wrote in “Billionaire, nerd, savior, king: Bill Gates and his quest to shape our world,” according to excerpts published by DailyMail.com.

According to the book, which hit stores Aug. 13, problems arose almost immediately after the couple married in 1994, and Gates began to miss his former flame, technology entrepreneur Ann Winblad.

According to the book, he made an unusual arrangement with his wife that allowed him to visit Winblad once a year at her home in North Carolina.

According to Das, French Gates personally conducted a review of her husband’s security team because she was concerned that “they were allowing him to be in places she didn’t know he was.”

The book also states that his wife ordered the maids not to give out his direct telephone number to women calling the house.

According to Das, the nerdy tycoon “assumed there would be no consequences for his behavior,” and the marriage ultimately ended due to “different views on the meaning of the marriage contract.”

According to Das, while she “truly believed that getting married would change something because of my deep belief in its sanctity,” Bill Gates believed that “love and marriage can often mean two different things.”

The tycoon’s eyes have also reportedly been set on young women working at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to Das, Gates “flirted with several female interns at the Gates Foundation, putting them in the awkward position of having to think about their career prospects while not being hit on by their boss.”

“In one case, a coworker chastised a colleague for sending a 22-year-old intern to Gates’ office alone, saying, ‘She’s too young and too pretty,’” Das wrote in the book.

Gates’s advances toward women were seen as “clumsy rather than predatory,” people who witnessed the advances told Das.

One former Microsoft executive said Gates did not “hunt” women or ask them for sexual favors in exchange for improving their job prospects.

“He’s not Harvey Weinstein… I don’t know of any real situation where someone would have gained anything by sleeping with Bill,” the former executive told Das.

Gates, 68, has shown “a certain naivety in his interactions with women, confusing open conversation with mutual interest,” the executive added.

The final straw for French Gates was her husband’s alleged friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who met with Bill Gates multiple times after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a minor.

The couple divorced in 2021, and French Gates launched a foundation earlier this year to start her own philanthropic business.

The Post reached out to French Gates through her Pivotal Ventures for comment.

Bill Gates’ spokesman sharply criticized Das and her book.

“Based almost entirely on second- and third-hand rumors and anonymous sources, the book contains highly sensational accusations and outright lies, ignoring the actual documented facts that our office has repeatedly provided to the author,” a representative for Gates’ office said in a statement to The Post.

“Mr. Gates has previously expressed deep regret over meeting with Epstein, with whom he met solely to discuss philanthropy.”