Warren Buffett called Bill Gates' association with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as "distasteful" after the Berkshire Hathaway chairman excluded the Gates Foundation from his sizable annual charitable donations.

"I read a great deal since January 1 in terms of what happened, with Bill and Epstein," Buffett said in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick. "While it's distasteful, while he made mistakes, I made mistakes, hiring all kinds of people, or choosing friends, and then finding out later that, one way or other, they weren't what I thought they were. I found nothing in there that was beyond what I could picture myself doing."

Buffett, who has been friends with Gates for more than three decades, said he extensively reviewed information about Gates' relationship with Epstein before deciding to overhaul his charitable giving. The 95-year old Buffett directed all of this year's donations to four family-linked foundations.

For years, the Gates Foundation was the largest recipient of his annual Berkshire donations. Since 2006, Buffett has donated more than $47 billion worth of Berkshire stock to the philanthropic organization founded by the Microsoft co-founder and his former wife, Melinda Gates.

Buffett said he and Gates remain in contact and recently spent several hours together in Omaha.

"He came by Omaha three weeks ago. I kind of lose track of time, but certainly not three months, and we spent three hours talking together," Buffett said. "He intends to call me... He already proposed another meeting."