Melinda French Gates spotted stepping off chopper in NY with new techie boyfriend Philip Vaughn
Melinda’s moved on.Billionaire Melinda French Gates was spotted arriving in the Big Apple by helicopter with her new techie boyfriend roughly three years after an “unbelievably painful” divorce to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.The 60-year-old philanthropist was seen holding hands with Seattle-based entrepreneur Philip Vaughn — who formerly worked as a computer programmer at her ex-husband’s company — after landing Wednesday morning, exclusive photos obtained by The Post reveal.Vaughn, who also founded the app-based craft beer delivery service Tavour over a decade ago, stepped off the chopper first and the pair then smiled as they climbed into an SUV.The lovebirds were both dressed casually in sneakers with French Gates sporting a floral scarf around her neck and dark-colored pants.Vaughn wore an Army green T-shirt under a blue coat and aviator- Ray-Bans.Vaughn worked at Microsoft, the company French Gate’s ex-husband co-founded, for nearly nine years including as a computer programmer, according to his LinkedIn profile.French Gates stepped out with her new beau a little over three years after filing for a heartbreaking divorce in August 2021 — and after 27 years of marriage to the tech giant.“I had some reasons I just couldn’t stay in that marriage anymore,” French Gates told Fortune magazine the following year.
“But the odd thing about COVID is that it gave me the privacy to do what I needed to do.“It’s unbelievably painful, in innumerable ways, but I had the privacy to get through it,” she said.She revealed that her ex-husband — then the fourth-richest man in the world — also had a lengthy affair with one of his Microsoft staffers in 2019.But she said she’d moved beyond the betrayal prior to their divorce.“I certainly believe in forgiveness, so I thought we had worked through some of that,” she told CBS Mornings in 2022.The former couple have three children together — Jennifer, 25, Rory, 23, and Phoebe, 19 — who wer...