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SYDNEY — Bill Gates has voiced regret over "every minute" he spent with Jeffrey Epstein, as the Microsoft cofounder's former wife Melinda said he still had questions to answer over his relationship with the convicted offender.

The latest tranche of documents released by the US Justice Department last week contained emails between many prominent figures and Epstein, often revealing warm friendships, illicit financial dealings and private photos.

In a draft email among the documents, Epstein alleged Gates engaged in extramarital affairs, writing that his relationship with Gates ranged from "helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trysts, with married women".

"Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize," Gates, a billionaire philanthropist, told 9News Australia in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.

"That email was never sent. The email is false," he said. "I don't know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way?"

A Gates spokesperson issued a similar denial after millions of files related to the investigation into Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019, were released. "The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein's frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame," the spokesperson said.

Melinda French Gates told US National Public Radio in an interview that the document dump brought back "memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage".

"For me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up," she said.

"Whatever questions remain there of what — I can't even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me."

The couple divorced in 2021.

Bill Gates told 9News that he met Epstein in 2011 and had several dinners with him over three years, but never visited his Caribbean island and didn't have relations with any women.

"The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end," he said.

Agencies - Xinhua