Boris Nikolic: How Epstein Built a Back Channel to the Gates Foundation

In November 2009, a correspondent emailed Epstein. "Boris is currently negotiating a job w bill. He needs help. He wants to be rich and has no idea how to craft the right deal. Help him, svengalil" (EFTA01820191-0). Boris Nikolic was about to become Bill Gates's science advisor. Epstein was being asked to help structure the terms. Four days later, Nikolic wrote to Epstein directly. "My trip is confirmed. I am traveling with Bill to South Africa a day after Thanksgiving. He will continue to Kenya but I can't join." He closed: "Hope to finally meet you!!! So much looking forward. Strange we never met but I feel like i am about to meet an old friend!" (EFTA02435461-0). They had not yet met in person. Nikolic was already traveling with Gates through Africa.

Two years later, Nikolic was in the role. In November 2011, Epstein sent him a link about the yuan with the subject "this is what will happen if we do nothing" (EFTA01835773-1). A correspondent replied the same day with intelligence from Harare: "Just off phone now with folks in Zimbabwe. China foreign minister there now. One thing they are discussing is switching to yuan. Currently national currency is dollar but it is struggling against neighboring rand and others where yuan is not. Also a 7b diamond deal signed today w China" (EFTA01835773-0). Nikolic was on the thread.

By May 2012, Epstein's reach into Gates's private office had deepened. An unnamed correspondent wrote about needing help at BGC3, Gates's private investment vehicle. "Boris (who doesn't know anything of personal efforts) would like try to help with a plan B in terms of helping out maybe at BGC3." The same person added: "Not sure how (or if) I should just be frank with Bill and Boris and ask them to cover me for the next 12 months somehow since I have to stay in SEattle till then" (EFTA01882296-4). The email referenced staying "calm and supportive till November or so as Steve gets through the hardest time in his life w MSFT." Someone inside the Gates-Microsoft orbit was using Epstein as a private fixer.

Five months later, Gates made the channel explicit. On September 30, 2012, he emailed Nikolic about Melinda French's agriculture trip in Tanzania with Kofi Annan. "Go ahead and forward this to Jeffrey. He and I talked quite a bit last night including explaining that Melinda had just been in Africa with Kofi. She really liked Kofi a lot." Nikolic forwarded the message to Epstein with two words: "For you" (EFTA01803600-0). Gates had spoken with Epstein the previous evening and personally directed his science advisor to share the information.

In March 2013, Nikolic sent Epstein a formal request. The subject line: "Polio - update - specific asks." It listed four questions: "Any advice re dealing with the violence in Nigeria and Pakistan? Who is perceived as influential in these problematic areas?" And: "How/who can assess whether the Taliban or Boko Harem can be ok with polio eradication and if so how we avoid conflict" (EFTA01900866-0). Gates's science advisor was asking a convicted sex offender for intelligence on militant groups. Epstein responded a week later. "I have asked my best sources for their consideration and advice. (their joint conclusions are very often better than the list of the various, 26, three-letter agencies)." His sources believed the immediate threat in Nigeria was not Boko Haram but that "the next wave of real baku involvement... is that the workers will be kidnapped and held for ransom. all these stories about fear of sterilization, men giving girls the vaccine is the media spin" (EFTA01761706-0). The next day he wrote: "I have instructed terje to put together the best team he can to begin in pakistan, afganistan. nigeria is not his thing, and a deffierent group" (EFTA01898485-0). Terje was Terje Rød-Larsen, president of the International Peace Institute. Epstein was giving operational orders.

That same month, Epstein sent Nikolic a one-line message: "if bill wants a favor in paki or nigeria, he will have to learn to respond to invitations by a yes or no, not ignoring" (EFTA01786552-0). Nikolic replied: "I do not understand what you are referring to?" (EFTA01789442-0). Epstein was leveraging his intelligence work for the Gates Foundation to pressure Gates for something. What he wanted in return is not specified in the archive.

In 2013, Nikolic also helped broker a multimillion-dollar grant between the Gates Foundation and the International Peace Institute for polio eradication intelligence in Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Amy Carter, the Foundation's Deputy Director of Family Interest Grants, referenced prior discussions "with Mr. Gates and Dr. Nikolic" in her correspondence with IPI (EFTA01958109-0). When Carter sent Nikolic an update on the grant timeline, he forwarded it with a warning: "Please do not forward. Let's discuss asap. IPI should ask fast!" (EFTA01964359-10). IPI's Andrea Pfanzelter sent the Seattle meeting agenda to both Nikolic and "Jeff Epstein." Nikolic replied: "I will try to attend it. If not possible I will talk to the people that are attending it. It is all moving into right direction" (EFTA01958109-0). The meeting produced $1 million in fast-track general operating support and a $4 million project grant over three years (EFTA01959363-1). Epstein had no role in the grant. He saw the internal correspondence anyway.

The channel ran in both directions. In August 2013, Ehud Barak introduced Parasight Ltd, an Israeli malaria diagnostics startup, to Nikolic. Epstein was copied on the thread. Nikolic forwarded the pitch to Gene Walther at the Gates Foundation: "I am sending this to Gene Walther who is leading diagnostics (including malaria diagnostics) at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" (EFTA01961245-0). Four months later Nikolic reported back to Barak: "I just had chance to review, there might be a small complexity as we have been funding a company to develop similar system! Nevertheless I will do my best to help any way I can" (EFTA01961245-5).

On November 5, 2013, Epstein forwarded an article directly to Nikolic. The subject line: "Bill Gates should not visit Nigeria." IPI researcher Nasra Hassan had sent it to Terje Rød-Larsen hours earlier. The article reported that Boko Haram had shot dead ten polio immunization workers in Kano and three in Borno. A northern Nigerian coalition had petitioned President Jonathan to cancel Gates's planned visit because "it may heighten tension and create fear amongst the administrators of the vaccines on children" (vol00009-efta00974820-pdf-0, EFTA01755599-0). Epstein was relaying field intelligence about threats to the Gates Foundation's own workers, directly to Gates's science advisor.

In May 2014, Epstein's foundation issued a press release claiming it had helped launch AI in Ethiopia. When someone forwarded it to Epstein, his only response was: "when are you next in ny? how was boris?" The reply: "Boris is in a rough spot. I am worried for him" (EFTA01922246-0, EFTA01924912-1). The Ethiopia claim was false. The full story is told separately.

The intelligence channel was also a financial channel. In October 2012, Epstein wrote to Nikolic about a deal structure involving Gates: "ifsomething happens to bill , insurance, contract loan forgiven over time. . 2. you recognize his concern that the limitation should be on your time, as money is more flexible, 3. it has to be a mechanism to genrarte fincancil secuirty, 5 deals of 20 million each" (EFTA01892907-0). Gates would provide the capital. Nikolic would bear the time commitment.

Eight months later, Epstein pitched Nikolic directly: "we buy the ny townhouse , it becomes the gates foundation office for science and tech , you are its president. It can invest at least 100 million in tech deals , and the profits after your overide go back to the foundaiton" (EFTA01967855-0).

On October 1, 2013, Epstein wrote to Nikolic: "don't forget to remind bill that he has to do something" (EFTA01952695-0). Nikolic replied: "It might be difficult today and tmr as Nathan, Lowell and few others are around. Nevertheless, I will do so during my next 1:1 in 2 week or next Monday in DC" (EFTA01755620-0). Thirty days later, Epstein emailed Gates, Nikolic, and Larry Cohen directly: "It's easy. Bill uses a 10-15 million dollar advance to buy his interest in the fund. Boris gets all the downside and fifty percent of the upside. Both are in the same position re the last deal , and bill has a free ride on 50 percent of the interests ups" (EFTA01756287-0). The same channel that carried polio intelligence from Nigeria was structuring deals where Gates invested millions through Nikolic with Epstein as architect.

In August 2019, two days before his death, Epstein signed a will naming Boris Nikolic as backup executor of his estate. Nikolic told Bloomberg he was "shocked" by the designation and had no idea he had been named.