Short Answer
Joichi “Joi” Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab from 2011 until his resignation in September 2019, when reporting by The New Yorker revealed he had personally solicited and helped conceal donations from Jeffrey Epstein to MIT — even after Epstein had become a registered sex offender.
In Detail
Background and Role at MIT
Joi Ito was a prominent figure in the technology and venture capital world before becoming director of the MIT Media Lab. Known for his investments in early internet companies and his involvement in open-source communities, he brought international visibility to the Media Lab. He was seen as a visionary connector between academia and the technology industry.
The Epstein Donations
Reporting by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker in September 2019 revealed that Epstein had donated approximately $7.5 million to the MIT Media Lab. More damaging, internal emails showed that Ito personally helped direct that donations from Epstein be kept anonymous — referred to internally as coming from “anonymous” donors — to shield the lab and its reputation from association with the registered sex offender.
Ito had also received approximately $1.2 million in personal investments from Epstein for his venture funds. The emails revealed that lab staff were explicitly told not to put Epstein’s name in writing in connection with the donations.
Resignation and Aftermath
Ito resigned as MIT Media Lab director on September 7, 2019. An MIT investigation led by law firm Goodwin Procter concluded that Ito had misrepresented Epstein’s donations to MIT administration and that at least $850,000 of Epstein money had gone directly to Ito’s personal funds.
MIT president L. Rafael Reif apologized publicly and commissioned the investigation. The episode triggered broader scrutiny of how elite institutions accepted and concealed donations from donors with criminal histories, and became a symbol of the academic establishment’s complicity in normalizing Epstein’s rehabilitation.