Joichi (Joi) Ito
Former Director, MIT Media Lab (2011–2019); former Harvard Corporation member; tech venture investor
Document Connections (3)
On September 4, 2019 — one day before he resigned — Joi Ito admitted in an internal MIT Media Lab meeting that he had accepted $525,000 from Jeffrey Epstein for the Media Lab and an additional $1.2 million from Epstein for Ito's personal investment ventures. A September 6, 2019 New Yorker article by Ronan Farrow alleged that, through Epstein's introductions, the Media Lab also received at least $7.5 million in donations from Leon Black and Bill Gates that were channeled via Epstein. The New Yorker further alleged that Ito and others at the Lab took deliberate steps to conceal Epstein's association with the donations.
- MIT Technology Review — Joi Ito resigns over ties to Jeffrey Epstein (2019-09-07)
- CNN — Director of MIT Media Lab resigns in Jeffrey Epstein scandal (2019-09-08)
- NPR — Joichi Ito steps down as MIT Media Lab director over ties to Epstein (2019-09-07)
- MIT Media Lab — Joi Ito: My apology regarding Jeffrey Epstein
- Wikipedia — List of people named in the Epstein files
Released emails document the Media Lab's internal concealment. Epstein's name was so widely known to be taboo inside the Lab that staff in Ito's office nicknamed him 'he who must not be named' or 'Voldemort.' An October 2014 email from Ito to MIT colleagues described a $2 million gift from Bill Gates as 'directed by Jeffrey Epstein.'
Ito resigned on September 7, 2019 from the directorship of MIT Media Lab, from the Harvard Corporation, from the board of The New York Times Company, from the board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and from his visiting positions at Harvard Law School. MIT released the results of an independent fact-finding investigation on January 10, 2020.