The Money Network:
Black, Gates, Nikolic, Epstein

The four people, and what connects them.

Leon Black paid the fees and received the tax structuring.

Epstein supplied the advice, took the money, and redirected Black’s giving.

Bill Gates is connected not through Black but through the same method — a $2m MIT gift Epstein claimed credit for, and a proposed multibillion-dollar fund built on Gates’s money that was never created.

Boris Nikolic is the only figure who touches both: Gates’s science adviser, the channel after 2016, and — per a Bloomberg source — a recipient of Epstein’s financial advice before the Editas IPO.

What the money actually did. $158 million went in. Between $1 billion and $2 billion in tax value came out. And $16 million of Black’s and Gates’s philanthropy landed at Harvard, MIT and Arizona State — three institutions where Epstein either wanted, or already had, a position.

The distinction this page holds throughout. Black’s personal estate structuring is the documented subject. Apollo Global Management’s corporate performance is a separate matter, and the evidence does not connect the two. See Section 04.

The 2006 GRAT is the centre of it.

A Grantor Retained Annuity Trust is a standard vehicle among the very wealthy: assets are placed in trust, the grantor takes back an annuity, and any appreciation above a set rate passes to heirs free of gift and estate tax.

Black had set one up in 2006. By 2012 it had a problem. Dechert records “a consensus among witnesses that Epstein offered a unique solution” — elsewhere described as “proprietary” — resolving it and moving assets to Black’s children while avoiding roughly $1 billion in gift and estate taxes.

The second component was a “step-up-basis transaction”, designed to save a further $600 million.

Who Epstein was, professionally. Not a licensed tax attorney. Not a certified public accountant. Senator Wyden’s letter makes the point directly, alongside the observation that his annualised fee exceeded median Fortune 500 CEO pay.

What witnesses said anyway. That he “provided significant value… in the areas of estate and tax planning,” and was “an active participant who provided unique solutions to several issues raised in the family office.”

And the sting in it. Air Mail’s reporting notes that some of the savings Epstein engineered may ultimately convert into liabilities for Black’s heirs — that the structures may not survive scrutiny.

The philanthropy was part of the brief. Dechert lists “philanthropic issues” among the services. Epstein was formally advising Black on where to give money — and $14 million of it went to institutions where Epstein wanted standing.

The connection between these men is not a shared venture. It is a shared method, and one shared person.

Black and Epstein — a documented commercial relationship, $158m in fees, $30.5m in loans, and philanthropy directed to Harvard, MIT and ASU.

Gates and Epstein — no fees in either direction. Meetings from 2011, a $2m MIT gift Epstein claimed, and an August 2011 proposal to JPMorgan for a multibillion-dollar charitable fund built on Gates’s money, with a memo recording the intent to “leverage the resources of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” Never created.

Black and Gates — no documented relationship with each other in this record. They are connected only by both having money Epstein wanted to direct.

Nikolic is the one who touches both sides. Gates’s chief science adviser and the channel after 2016; named successor executor of Epstein’s estate; and reported to have taken financial advice from Epstein before the Editas IPO — Editas being co-founded by George Church, a Harvard geneticist funded by Epstein money that Black replaced.

The pattern that emerges. Epstein did not build a syndicate. He built a set of bilateral relationships in which he was the only person who saw the whole board — and each participant experienced only their own leg of it.

Which is why the JPMorgan proposal matters even though it failed. It is the one documented instance of him trying to merge the legs: Black’s bank, Gates’s capital, and his own name on the founding of a multibillion-dollar fund.

This distinction determines whether the rest of the page is credible, so it is worth making sharply.

What is documented about Apollo:

Epstein’s Financial Trust Company purchased 263,257 shares in Apollo Global Management’s 2011 initial public offering. Epstein held Apollo equity.

Black was Apollo’s co-founder, chairman and CEO. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 following the Dechert report, and left the chairmanship shortly after.

The report itself was commissioned by Apollo’s own board — specifically its Conflicts Committee — and disclosed in an SEC filing.

What is not documented:

That Epstein’s advice affected Apollo’s business, its funds, its returns or its assets under management. Dechert and Apollo both state Epstein was never retained by Apollo and was never an investor in Apollo’s funds.

Why the distinction is real rather than defensive. The $158 million bought personal estate structuring — a GRAT holding Black’s own assets, a basis step-up on Black’s own holdings. Those are Black’s private tax affairs.

Apollo’s growth over the same period tracked the expansion of private credit and private equity across the entire industry. Attributing it to Epstein would require evidence that does not exist in the released record — and would make every documented figure on this page easier to dismiss.

The honest version is strong enough. A convicted sex offender was paid $158 million by a private equity founder, saved him a billion or more, held stock in his firm, directed his philanthropy, and is now the subject of an open Senate tax investigation.

This is the only part of the money story still formally live.

June 2022. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden writes to Apollo CEO Marc Rowan seeking information on the arrangement, noting the fee “appears to far exceed that paid by Black to his other professional advisors” and exceeded median Fortune 500 CEO pay.

July 2023. Wyden unveils the ongoing investigation publicly, stating it has “uncovered serious tax issues and other concerns with trusts and structures Black executed to avoid over $1 billion in future gift and estate taxes” — and that Black has refused to answer key questions.

The core question. Not whether the advice was good. Whether $158 million paid to an unlicensed adviser constituted fees at all — or gifts, on which Black would owe tax.

Why that framing is sharp. If they were fees, they are deductible business expenses paid for services. If they were gifts, they are taxable transfers — and the sum was moving to a man who was, by then, a convicted sex offender under no obligation to do anything with it.

The unresolved tail. Air Mail reports that the structures may not withstand scrutiny, and that savings credited to Epstein could become liabilities for Black’s heirs.

Black denies wrongdoing, was cleared by Dechert of involvement in Epstein’s crimes, and has not been charged with any offence.