Joi Ito

Joi Ito (born Joichi Ito, June 19, 1966, in Kyoto, Japan) is a Japanese-American venture capitalist and technology advocate who served as director of the MIT Media Lab from 2011 until his September 2019 resignation. Ronan Farrow's New Yorker reporting (September 2019) documented that the Media Lab had a deeper financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein than previously disclosed, including Epstein-directed donations that Ito had personally solicited and attempted to conceal. Ito attended the 2015 Epstein dinner (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564) alongside Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg. Hoffman participated in the Epstein image-rehabilitation effort through Ito's introductions.¹²³

The MIT Media Lab and the Epstein Funding

Ito became director of the MIT Media Lab in 2011. The Media Lab is the interdisciplinary research laboratory at MIT known for its experimental work at the intersection of technology, media, and design. Epstein made six donations to the lab between 2013 and 2017, totaling 525,000 dollars, which MIT recorded as anonymous, and internal emails credited him with directing at least 7.5 million dollars more from Bill Gates and Leon Black; Ito personally solicited Epstein money and instructed staff to record it as anonymous.¹⁴

Farrow's New Yorker piece (September 6, 2019), titled "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," documented that the Media Lab's relationship with Epstein was more extensive than MIT had publicly acknowledged, that Ito had accepted Epstein-directed donations after the 2008 conviction, and that the Lab had taken steps to keep the relationship from becoming public. The reporting was based on internal Media Lab documents obtained by The New Yorker. Ito resigned the same week.¹

The Image-Rehabilitation Channel and the Hoffman Connection

The Ito-Epstein channel functioned as the conduit through which Reid Hoffman participated in the post-conviction Epstein image-rehabilitation effort. Axios reported in September 2019 that Hoffman apologized for his role in helping repair Epstein's public image, specifically for introductions Hoffman facilitated related to Epstein's MIT donations through Ito. The effort included an August 2015 dinner that Hoffman hosted in Palo Alto (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564), ostensibly to raise money for the Media Lab, whose guest list included Ito, Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Epstein. Epstein described the gathering in an August 20, 2015 email to Tom Pritzker, writing "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild."²³⁵

Epstein's donations to the Media Lab were directed through intermediaries and through structures designed to obscure the source. The New Yorker reporting documented that Ito had personally solicited additional Epstein-directed funds after the 2008 conviction and that the Lab had marked Epstein's contributions in its internal records with designations intended to keep the relationship from becoming public. The internal Media Lab documents obtained by The New Yorker included emails in which Ito and other Media Lab staff discussed how to process Epstein-directed funds without triggering disclosure requirements.¹⁴

The Resignation and the Aftermath

Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab on September 7, 2019, one day after the New Yorker reporting. MIT initiated an independent investigation conducted by the law firm Goodwin Procter, which produced a report documenting the extent of the Media Lab's Epstein relationship and the institutional failures that permitted it. The Goodwin Procter investigation found that Epstein made ten donations to MIT totaling 850,000 dollars between 2002 and 2017, nine of them, 750,000 dollars, after his 2008 conviction and 525,000 dollars of those to the Media Lab; that the post-conviction gifts were driven by Ito or by Professor Seth Lloyd; that three members of MIT's senior team approved them in 2013 knowing of Epstein's record; and that President L. Rafael Reif "was not contemporaneously aware of Epstein's donations."⁴

Ito also resigned from positions at the MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, and the New York Times Company board. The MIT Media Lab subsequently reformed its donor-acceptance policies to prohibit anonymous donations and to require enhanced due diligence on donors with criminal records.¹⁴

Due Diligence and Cultivation

Ito met Epstein at the TED Conference in February 2013 through Linda Stone, a former member of the Media Lab's advisory council. Asking Stone about "public perception issues," he wrote that "Nicholas [Negroponte] and I talked about 'figuring it out' if he decides that he wants to give 'real money'" and that "people in my office are a bit weirded out." Stone advised him to "[f]ocus on his funding of Harvard, scientists, over many years"; she later told investigators that Epstein had insisted to her he was "wrongfully convicted" and had passed a lie-detector test. Ito told the investigators he took that advice and was persuaded by Epstein's high-profile connections, who vouched for him. In a June 2013 email to staff who objected, Ito wrote, "I find him very smart and interesting and excited about our work."⁶⁷

From 2013 to 2018 Ito pitched Epstein on progressively larger gifts: in August 2013 a center for the study of "deceptive design" in evolutionary biology, in February 2016 an endowed chair named for Marvin Minsky costing several million dollars, in April 2016 a 12 million dollar fellowship program in "antidisciplinary science," and in 2018 1.5 million dollars for research by the Media Lab scientist Caleb Harper. None was made; Epstein never gave more than 150,000 dollars at a time. When the lab's development director raised the allegation in January 2015 that Epstein had forced an underage girl to have sex with Prince Andrew, Ito replied: "I'm talking to [Epstein] about this. I'd rather not discuss over email, but it's possible, not likely, but possible that in the end, all of this new stuff will help clear him." He also strategized with Epstein about how to "mollify the bad press" after articles on a civil suit by Epstein's victims. In December 2017, answering another staff complaint, Ito wrote that Negroponte "agrees that we should treat Jeffrey with respect."⁶

Ito proposed in February 2016 that Epstein attend the memorial for Minsky and suggested getting him "a private room at the Lab where he can 'hold court'"; after discussion with Minsky's family Epstein stayed in Ito's office and did not attend the event. On November 3, 2016, without disclosing Epstein's existing anonymous gifts, Ito asked the chairman of MIT's Executive Committee, Robert Millard, "Can you help me figure out how to get money from JE?" Millard declined Epstein's dinner invitation. George Church's online calendar listed Ito as a guest at a meal with Epstein.⁶⁸

The Bin Sulayem Visit

Four weeks after the Millard email, Ito hosted a Cambridge visit arranged by Epstein for Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of the Dubai state ports operator DP World. On November 29, 2016, Epstein's assistant Lesley Groff wrote to Ito: "I understand you and Sultan will be meeting with Jeffrey on Wed. Nov. 30th up at Harvard...can you please let me know your timing? Also, this will be at Martin Nowak's office at 1 Brattle Square?" Ito answered: "Sultan will be with me at the Media Lab. I can take Sultan to Martin's place. What time? Jeffrey originally told me that he was going to drop by the Media Lab at 11AM and then leave the Lab or Martin's at 11:30AM." He added that he was "locking in a bunch of meetings for Sultan at the Media Lab from 9:30AM-11AM (and we could use a bit more time too if Jeffrey isn't going to be in Boston yet)" and asked Groff for "the specifics of Jeffrey's plan." Bin Sulayem's assistant, one of two DP World employees "with the Chairman's office" travelling with him, wrote that he would stay at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. Ito's office told Groff that Ito planned to leave the lab with the party "around 11am to head to the Harvard," to the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics of Martin Nowak.⁹

The Personal Investments

Epstein also put money into Ito's private ventures: 250,000 dollars in a company formed to commercialize technology developed at MIT and 1 million dollars in a 9 million dollar private investment fund Ito managed. In January 2018 Ito asked Epstein to invest 5 million to 15 million dollars in a further non-MIT fund; Epstein did not. Ito told the investigators the two investments were held in "escrow" while he tried to "eject" Epstein's money.⁶

On August 15, 2019, Ito posted an apology on the lab's website: "I met Epstein in 2013 at a conference through a trusted business friend and, in my fundraising efforts for MIT Media Lab, I invited him to the Lab and visited several of his residences." He pledged to raise an amount equal to the lab's Epstein donations for survivors' groups and to "return the money that Epstein has invested in my investment funds." His public account said that "the Lab has received money through some of the foundations that he controlled." On Wednesday, September 4, 2019, Ito disclosed that he had received 1.2 million dollars from Epstein for investment funds under his control, in addition to the 525,000 dollars given to the lab. Two days later The New Yorker published the internal emails in which Ito solicited Epstein money ("Could you re-up/top-off with another $100K so we can extend his contract another year?") and directed that it be recorded as anonymous ("Make sure this gets accounted for as anonymous"). Ito did not respond to Farrow's requests for comment and resigned on September 7.¹⁸