Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Joi Ito, the director of the influential MIT Media Lab, submitted his resignation in the wake of scrutiny over the center’s financial relationship with Epstein

Joi Ito, the director of the influential MIT Media Lab, submitted his resignation in the wake of scrutiny over the center’s financial relationship with Epstein

Joi Ito, the director of the influential MIT Media Lab, submitted his resignation on Saturday, in the wake of continued scrutiny over the center’s financial relationship with Epstein, the university announced in a statement.

Ito, who was also a member of the New York Times Company board of directors, also resigned from that board, “effective immediately”, a Times spokeswoman said.

MIT and the Media Lab had previously admitted to accepting some financial donations from Epstein, despite the financier’s public history of pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a child.

But new reports from the New Yorker and the New York Times said that internal emails indicated Media Lab officials had worked to conceal the full extent of Epstein’s donations to the Media Lab, and his other assistance to the center.

This included at least $7.5m in donations Epstein helped secure from two other prominent philanthropists, Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black, the New Yorker reported.

In a statement, MIT’s president, L Rafael Reif, called the allegations in the New Yorker story “deeply disturbing” and “extremely serious” and pledged that the university would conduct “an immediate, thorough and independent investigation”, which would be conducted by a “prominent law firm.”

“The acceptance of the Epstein gifts involved a mistake of judgment,” Reif wrote. The university was still assessing how to “prevent such mistakes in the future”.

The New Yorker’s investigation cited former media lab employees who spoke about their concerns about the lab’s years-long relationship with Epstein, as well as internal emails from Ito, who wrote of one Epstein donation: “Make sure this gets accounted for as anonymous,” and another from an employee who wrote: “Jeffrey money, needs to be anonymous.”

In 2015, according to Signe Swenson, a former development associate at the lab who spoke to the New Yorker, Epstein himself visited the lab, accompanied by two young female “assistants”.

Swenson said the visit, already uncomfortable, became more distressing at the sight of the young women who accompanied Epstein.

Among the lab’s staff, “all of us women made it a point to be super nice to them. We literally had a conversation about how, on the off chance that they’re not there by choice, we could maybe help them,” Swenson told the New Yorker.

The lab’s internal planning for the visit included ensuring Epstein’s name was kept off Ito’s public calendar, and strategizing about how to keep a member of the lab who disapproved of its association with Epstein from seeing the meeting in progress, Swenson told the New Yorker.

Ito, who led the influential university research center for eight years, emailed his resignation to university officials on Saturday, according to the New York Times.

“After giving the matter a great deal of thought over the past several days and weeks, I think that it is best that I resign as director of the media lab and as a professor and employee of the Institute, effective immediately,” Ito wrote in an email shared with the New York Times.

Ito did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The investor and author has been an influential figure in the world of American media, technology, and philanthropy. As well as having served on The New York Times board, he had been serving on the board of the Knight Foundation, one of the most prominent funders of media innovation in the United States; and the MacArthur Foundation, which has given out grants totalling nearly $70bn in the past decades.

In a tweet on Saturday, the MacArthur foundation announced that Ito had also resigned from its board.

“The recent reports of Ito’s behavior in The New Yorker, if true, would not be in keeping with the values of MacArthur. Most importantly, our hearts go out to the girls and women who survived the abuse of Jeffrey Epstein,” the foundation tweeted.

The public revelations about Epstein’s relationships with MIT’s Media Lab had been divisive, with some Lab members and associates defending the center and others calling its ties to Epstein unacceptable. Before the New Yorker story was published, some of Ito’s friends and associates publicly came to his defense.

MIT’s president said the university had taken about $800,000 from Epstein over 20 years. The New Yorker reported Epstein had arranged $7.5m in donations.

Epstein killed himself in jail on 10 August while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Just days ago, a co-founder of the Media Lab had defended its decision to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from Epstein.

“If you wind back the clock, I would still say ‘take it’,” Nicholas Negroponte said at a town hall meeting on Wednesday.

Negroponte, whose brother served as an assistant secretary of state under George W Bush, later defended his remarks to the Boston Globe.

“We all knew he went to jail for soliciting underage prostitution,” Negroponte told the Globe. “But we thought he served his term and repented.”

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, as part of a lenient deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. He served 13 months of an 18-month prison sentence, much of it on day release.

That plea deal came under renewed scrutiny in recent months following a series of articles published by the Miami Herald, leading to new charges being filed against Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York.

Alex Acosta, who as US attorney in Miami oversaw the deal, resigned as US labor secretary.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
×