Yuri Gripas/REUTERS; Neil Rasmus/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images; Lambert/ullstein bild/Getty Images; Samantha Lee/Business Insider
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Jeffrey Epstein, and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
- In 2011, an elite dinner party was held during the TED Conference in Long Beach, California.
- In attendance at the dinner were Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- At the time, Epstein had been out of jail for less than two years. He was convicted of soliciting sex with a 14-year-old girl in 2008.
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Tesla CEO Tesla Musk and several other high-profile tech execs and celebrities reportedly attended a small, private dinner in March 2011 during the annual TED Conference.
The event, known informally as the "Billionaire's dinner," was also attended by financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a new report by BuzzFeed News detailing those who attended.
In March 2011, Epstein was less than two years out from serving a 13-month prison sentence for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl.
Associated Press
In this July 30, 2008 file photo, Jeffrey Epstein appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla. Epstein has died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, says person briefed on the matter, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019.
Though photos of the 2011 dinner are still available online, Epstein isn't featured in any of the images nor does his name appear on the event page - but he does appear in the background of a photo of Montara Capital Partners head Zack Bogue.
The dinner, held annually by New York literary agent John Brockman, is hosted by Brockman's Edge group.
Brockman describes his group as representative of "the third culture," which, "consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are."
According to the BuzzFeed News report, Brockman was a proponent of Epstein's re-introduction to elite circles following his arrest and conviction for soliciting sex with a minor.
Reuters
Jeffrey Epstein looks on during a status hearing in his sex trafficking case, in this court sketch in New York.
American financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested July 6 on suspicion of sex trafficking minors. He was being held without bail awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking. On August 10, Epstein died by suicide while being held at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center.
In his career as a financier, Epstein met and developed ties to some of the world's most famous names: People like Bill Gates, as well as lesser known names like MIT's Marvin Minsky and LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman.
But Epstein's arrest in July wasn't his first encounter with
In 2008, Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from a 14-years-old girl, and federal agents originally sought to connect him to the sexual abuse of nearly 40 girls. He served 13 months in a Florida prison before being released on probation.
A plea deal arranged by Alexander Acosta, then US attorney for Southern District of Florida, enabled Epstein to leave the facility and work from home up to 12 hours per day, six days per week. When Epstein was arrested in July on suspicion of sex trafficking minors, Acosta - who by 2019 was appointed US Secretary of Labor by President Trump - resigned.
In the wake of Epstein's death, the federal case against him was dropped. But even with the case over, the fallout from the Epstein scandal continues.
Business Insider reached out to the parties named above and have yet to hear back as of publishing.
