Bill Gates left Microsoft board in 2020, as the company's board initiated an investigation into an alleged affair between him and a female employee, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
"Microsoft Corp. board members decided that Bill Gates needed to step down from its board in 2020 as they pursued an investigation into the billionaire's prior romantic relationship with a female Microsoft employee that was deemed inappropriate," the Journal reported, citing people close to the matter.
Gates the founder of the giant tech and former board chair stepped down from his role in March 2020.
According to Gates spokesperson, the billionaire left the only role that linked him with the company to focus on his philanthropic work at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gates and his wife Melinda co-founded the foundation two decades ago to empower people and battle diseases.
On May 3 Bill and Melinda announced that they were divorcing after 27 years of marriage.
A source at Microsoft told AFP that claims of the relationship between the billionaire and the employee surfaced in the second half of 2019 that " Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in 2000. The board reviewed the concern aided by an outside law to conduct a thorough investigation, "
The employee in question, an engineer at the firm claimed in a letter to have had a sexual relationship with Gates " over years" the Journal further reported
Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 and served as its Chief Executive Officer before stepping down in 2000.
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