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The founder in the headline is Nicholas Negroponte, who co-founded the MIT Media Lab and formerly directed it. At a September 4, 2019, staff meeting, he said he had recommended accepting Jeffrey Epstein’s money. He later clarified that he meant the decision as judged by what was known at the time—not that anyone should have accepted Epstein’s money after the sex-trafficking charges became public.
What did Negroponte say, and what did he mean?
MIT Technology Review reported that Negroponte told the Media Lab’s September 4, 2019, all-hands meeting: “If you wind back the clock,” he added, “I would still say, ‘Take it.’” Listeners interpreted his remarks differently. In clarifications to the Boston Globe and MIT Technology Review, he said he was speaking about the information available when the donations were accepted.
Negroponte put the distinction this way: “Given what we know today [about the recent sex-trafficking charges]… nobody would or should have taken his money.” He added: “But wind the clock backwards, given what we knew then, I would have accepted his money now.” He also told the Boston Globe, “Yes, we are embarrassed and regret taking his money.” These statements convey both his retrospective defense and his regret; the meeting remarks were not an uncontested endorsement.
How much money did MIT receive, and when?
MIT’s January 2020 summary of an independent review counted gifts to the university across the period 2002–2017. Its totals are broader than the Media Lab figure discussed at the 2019 meeting because they include gifts to other MIT recipients.
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| Scope | Amount and timing | What the figure covers |
|---|---|---|
| All MIT gifts | $850,000 across ten gifts, 2002–2017 | MIT’s total for gifts from Epstein to the university, according to its January 2020 summary. |
| Gifts after Epstein’s 2008 conviction | $750,000 across nine gifts | MIT’s summary says $525,000 went to the Media Lab and $225,000 to Professor Seth Lloyd. |
| Earliest gift | $100,000 in 2002 | A gift to support Professor Marvin Minsky’s research, according to MIT’s summary. |
| Figure discussed at the 2019 meeting | $525,000 | MIT Technology Review reported that then-director Joi Ito said the Media Lab had received this amount from Epstein. MIT’s 2020 summary also lists $525,000 in post-conviction gifts to the Lab. |
The founder’s remarks concerned the decision to take gifts, while Joi Ito was the Lab’s director during the donations and at the center of the controversy. Keeping their roles distinct matters: the headline attributes the defense to Negroponte, not Ito.
Why did the Lab accept the gifts?
As reported by MIT Technology Review, Negroponte argued that donor relationships had helped the Lab operate without tuition, pay full salaries, and let researchers retain intellectual property. That was his rationale for accepting the money; it does not establish that those benefits depended on accepting Epstein’s gifts.
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The New Yorker’s investigation, based on emails and interviews, described a further concern about how some gifts were handled. It reported that Lab officials marked Epstein’s direct gifts anonymous, and that Epstein was involved in directing or soliciting gifts from other donors. In one example, the publication reported that in 2014 Ito asked Epstein for another $100,000, Epstein agreed, and Ito instructed that the gift be recorded as anonymous. These reported direct gifts should be distinguished from outside donations that Epstein was said to have helped secure.
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MIT’s January 2020 summary of the Goodwin Procter review said three university vice presidents learned in 2013 about Epstein’s gifts to the Media Lab and his status as a convicted sex offender. The summary also said MIT had no policy or process for handling controversial donors at the time. It quoted the review: “Since MIT had no policy or processes for handling controversial donors in place at the time, the decision to accept Epstein’s post-conviction donations cannot be judged to be a policy violation.”
That procedural conclusion was not an ethical endorsement. The review also concluded: “But it is clear that the decision was the result of collective and significant errors in judgment that resulted in serious damage to the MIT community.” It reported that Epstein visited MIT nine times between 2013 and 2017 without senior leadership’s knowledge. MIT said it found no evidence that the senior team member who was president at the time knew of Epstein’s criminal history or played a role in approving the gifts.
The review also disputed a detail in The New Yorker’s account: the magazine reported that MIT’s donor database listed Epstein as “disqualified,” while MIT said neither Epstein nor his foundations had ever been coded that way. MIT explained that the database label meant inactive or no longer interested in giving, not barred from donating. That disagreement about the database does not resolve the separate questions about accepting gifts after the conviction or recording gifts anonymously.
What about the reported Gates and Black donations?
The New Yorker reported that internal documents connected Epstein’s involvement to $7.5 million in donations from Bill Gates and Leon Black, and said he helped secure those gifts. MIT’s review, however, said it found no evidence the donated money was Epstein’s or that Gates and Black acted to launder his money. The accounts describe different claims: reported involvement in securing outside donations is not proof that Epstein supplied the funds.
Was taking the money justified?
“Justified” is an ethical judgment, not a question MIT’s policy finding settles. The review found no applicable controversial-donor policy whose violation could be established, but it still called the post-conviction decisions significant errors of judgment and documented harm to the MIT community. Negroponte’s argument rests on the information available to decision-makers at the time and the institutional benefits he associated with philanthropy. The counterargument is that Epstein’s 2008 conviction was already part of the record, and that anonymous handling and weak institutional safeguards raise concerns beyond whether a rule was technically broken.
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So Negroponte’s remark is best read narrowly: he defended the decision as it looked to him at the time, while acknowledging that accepting the money was wrong in light of what became known later. Whether the earlier decision was ethically defensible remains open to judgment; MIT’s own review did not call it a policy violation, but it plainly did not vindicate the decisions either.
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