Employees of the nuclear power company TerraPower questioned CEO Chris Levesque on Thursday about connections between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and company board leaders Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold.
Levesque called the ties a “troubling situation” in a town-hall meeting with staff, The Seattle Times reported, but said there were no links between the Bellevue, Wash.-business and either Epstein or his money.
Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and former CEO, and Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, launched TerraPower in 2006 out of Intellectual Ventures, the Bellevue-based firm founded by Myhrvold that supports the development of innovative technologies. Gates is currently chairman of TerraPower’s company board while Myhrvold serves as vice chair.
In the town-hall meeting, an employee asked how women could feel safe and respected if presenting at future board meetings, the Times reported.
Details of Epstein’s relationships with prominent elected and business leaders were revealed in the millions of pages of unsealed court documents that include emails, notes, flight logs, photos and videos and financial records associated with the deceased pedophile.
Gates apologized last month to Gates Foundation staff for his past interactions with Epstein, acknowledging in an internal town hall that the situation puts the global health foundation’s reputation at risk, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Gates met with Epstein multiple times from 2011 to 2014, years after the financier had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution, according to the WSJ report.
In the meeting with foundation employees, Gates acknowledged two extramarital affairs (with a Russian bridge player and a Russian nuclear physicist) that Epstein later discovered through a mutual connection. Gates insisted he didn’t participate in or witness any of Epstein’s crimes, WSJ reported, telling staff, “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit.”
Gates has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein’s victims.
The Seattle Times has separately reported on deeper ties between Myhrvold and Epstein, including emails showing the two met regularly in Seattle and New York from 2010 through 2018, and correspondence that appeared to show Myhrvold visiting Epstein’s private island.
Myhrvold was also listed as a “friend” in Epstein’s 2003 birthday book and contributed a personal letter to the project, as GeekWire previously reported.
A spokesperson for Myhrvold said previously that he knew Epstein “from TED conferences and as a donor to basic scientific research” and “regrets that he ever met him.”
On Thursday, Levesque acknowledged, “Some of the news is troubling, but again there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing,” the Times reported. “This is stuff that we’ll continue to work through with our board,” he added.
Reached by GeekWire, a company spokesperson said via email: “TerraPower has no additional comments outside of what was shared directly with employees.”
TerraPower last week became the first company in the nation to receive federal approval for construction of its next-generation nuclear power plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a unanimous decision allowing work on its Wyoming demonstration plant to take essential next steps.
The company is engineering a new model of smaller, less expensive nuclear reactors that can be produced in three years from fabricated components — instead of the past approach of constructing giant, one-off structures that take a decade to erect. The reactors will be able to generate 345 of power around-the-clock, plus bursts of power provided by molten salt batteries.
New energy sources including TerraPower reactors are in high demand as tech giants seek renewable power to electrify their data center and AI operations.
