Leader of MIT Media Lab Steps Down After Revelation of Extensive Ties to Jeffrey Epstein – The Chronicle of Higher Education
Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, resigned on Saturday, less than a day after an exposé appeared in The New Yorker about the lab’s extensive ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the accused child-sex trafficker.
The article, based on interviews with whistle-blowers and pages of internal emails, revealed that the Media Lab had continued to accept gifts from Epstein, despite being aware that the financier had pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution in 2008, and even though he had been categorized as “disqualified” in MIT’s donor database.
The lab reportedly marked his contributions as anonymous in an apparent effort to minimize awareness of the relationship. It also used him as a go-between for $7.5 million in gifts from other wealthy donors, apparently including Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black, according to the article.
MIT had previously acknowledged receiving about $800,000 over 20 years from foundations Epstein controlled. The money had been given to the lab and to Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering, who has apologized for accepting the gifts, decisions that he described as “professional as well as moral failings.”