Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said "I apologize" for spending time with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, explaining he had met with the financier to find investors for global health initiatives.

“Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that,” Gates told Australia’s 9News in an interview published Wednesday.

Gates' comments follow the Justice Department's release of the last batch of 3 million Epstein files on Friday.

In one message that Epstein drafted, he accused Gates of asking him to delete emails about a sexually transmitted disease and requested antibiotics that he could “surreptitiously” give to his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, The Hill reported.

Epstein also alleged in another email that he sent to himself in 2013 that Gates had “sex with Russian girls” and “illicit trysts” with married women.

"Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself," Gates said in the interview. "That email was never sent. The email is false. I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way?"

Gates added that he had multiple dinners with Epstein over several years but did not visit the late financier’s island or meet “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,” Gates said. 

“I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him. The more that comes out, the more clear it will be that, although the time was a mistake, it has nothing to do with that kind of behavior,” he added.