Phoebe Gates, 23, the daughter of software billionaire, climate change promoter, friend of Jeffrey Epstein and apparent marriage philanderer Bill Gates, is the co-founder of a multimillion-dollar startup company, Phia, which is described as a digital personal shopping assistant.
And a new report is suggesting that that corporation, which had been claiming income of some $80,000 a day, fudged.
And took credit for sales for which it had no input.
It as Bloomberg News that said Phia co-founders are Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni.
The report cited “internal communications and people with knowledge of the matter” saying their software scheme took credit for sales it didn’t drive.
Further, Bloomberg charged, those sources say, “The founders were aware of the practice for at least seven months going back to December, according to the people and messages posted on the company’s internal Slack channels. … The people asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to discuss the issue.”
Also reporting was the New York Post, which said the accusations involve “cookie stuffing.”
The essence is that it reportedly was “taking undue credit for online sales at retail partners.”
The company claimed it only learned of the situation “within the last 24 hours” and the “glitch” would be fixed.
Bloomberg’s report, however, charged company officials knew of the actions for at least seven months.
Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe accused of ‘cookie stuffing’ scheme that has max penalty of 20 years in prison: reports https://t.co/PlBHx8iq4L pic.twitter.com/22uYgl5y8D
— New York Post (@nypost) August 12, 2026
Phoebe Gates Faces Up to 20 Years in Prison for ‘Cookie Stuffing’ — Secretly Claiming Sales Commissions Her App Didn’t Earn
Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe Gates is accused of using “cookie stuffing” at her shopping startup Phia — dropping tracking cookies to take credit and… pic.twitter.com/NPgIOiN7p3
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) August 13, 2026
Phia co-founders Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni pushed for features in the startup’s software that took credit for sales it didn’t drive.
The founders were aware of the practice for at least seven months. @oliviasolon reports https://t.co/9Oa8foUHIV pic.twitter.com/zLsdODsM3c
— Bloomberg (@business) August 11, 2026
“Any features causing misattributions were immediately removed over a month ago on July 7. We are reviewing every transaction, we are fully committed to and have already begun issuing all transaction reversals to brand partners as a result of any misattribution, and we are hiring a head of compliance to make sure something like this never happens again,” the company alleged.
The Post reported the company “raised a jaw-dropping $30 million in 2025 from backers including Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner and Spanx founder Sara Blakely.”
It’s a “browser extension” that is to find “discount codes for customers across online retailers.
“When a shopper uses Phia by selecting one of its coupon codes, the software drops a ‘cookie’ – which tracks activity across the web – to show that retailer it helped drive the sale and earn itself a commission,” the report said.
It added, “But Kianni and Gates – the Microsoft princess whose dad is worth $108.4 billion, according to Forbes – were aware of features that dropped cookies into the checkout process even when customers did not use Phia, according to people familiar with the matter and internal Slack messages reviewed by Bloomberg.”
Retailers involved apparently included Nike, Gap and Nordstrom.
The report noted, “After Phia disabled the features in July, average daily revenue at the company plummeted from around $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000, according to Bloomberg.”
The reports cited internal company messaging that insisted the software drop a “cookie” every time the browser extension popped up “even if the shopper didn’t click a coupon,” so that it would earn a commission for the total gross merchandise value.
