India, Feb. 26 -- American tech entrepreneur Bill Gates has apologised to the staff at the Gates Foundation over his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein but maintained that he did "nothing illicit," according to a media report. The Microsoft co-founder also admitted that he had two affairs with Russian women and that he made mistakes that had cast a cloud over the philanthropic group while insisting he didn't participate in Epstein's crimes, The Wall Street Journal said in an exclusive report on Tuesday.

Gates was among the scores of celebrities, politicians, leaders and tech entrepreneurs shown having connections with the sex offender as was evident in the tens of thousands of documents, including emails, interview transcri...