This archive report was first published on 6 September 2019.
MIT's Media Lab has long been a hub for innovation and collaboration, attracting some of the world's most influential minds. However, a closer look at the lab's past reveals a complex web of relationships with a man who would later become a convicted sex offender: Jeffrey Epstein.
According to a 2019 New York Times article, Epstein's connections to the lab date back to the early 2000s, when he began attending the lab's events and cultivating relationships with its members. Epstein's mentors included Lawrence Lessig, a law professor and founder of Creative Commons, and his online photo albums featured pictures of notable figures such as Yo-Yo Ma and J.J. Abrams.
It was perhaps inevitable that Epstein would meet Joi Ito, the lab's director at the time, given their shared network of influential contacts. Both men attended the 1999 Billionaires' Dinner and belonged to the invitation-only Trilateral Commission in 2003. Ito has said that he met Epstein in a hotel lobby during a conference in 2013, five years after Epstein's plea in Florida.
Epstein's donations to the lab, including a $1.2 million grant in 2014 to restore Mark Rothko murals on campus, created a schism among its members. Some questioned the lab's association with Epstein, who had a history of cultivating relationships with celebrity scientists. In 2015, Elizabeth Stark, the CEO of Lightning Labs, was approached by someone at the lab about investing Epstein's money in her company, but she declined after researching Epstein's history.
“In five minutes I was able to Google and make a determination that seemed like such a no-brainer,” Stark said.
