Joi Ito, Director of MIT Media Lab: Lied About How He Met Jeffrey Epstein

Joi Ito had the title, trust, and "genius" reputation. The federal record shows a dinner with Woody Allen and Soon‑Yi - 7 weeks before his claimed first meeting - and 6 years of Epstein access.

Apr 09, 2026

Joi Ito wants you to believe it all started innocently. Just coincidentally met Epstein at a conference in 2013 — a casual meeting. He says he did his homework and looked into Epstein, asked around. He says he just did not fully understand who Jeffrey Epstein was yet.

Now, the federal documents tell a completely different story.

This is documented — it was in Epstein's own personal calendar: April 2013. — 7 weeks before that dinner Ito pointed to as their first meeting — a reminder to bring Woody Allen to MIT, and to meet with “Joicho Ito” that same month. So, the relationship wasn’t an accident, it was being arranged months in advance, before Ito even says it started.

And then came 6 years of access. 6 years of MIT’s name, its scholars, events, even its official letterhead — handed over, piece by piece, to a convicted sex offender and paedophile. Money moved through the institution like a slush fund, which is exactly what Joi coined it. Leon Black’s cash flowed, Gary Gensler got brought into meetings, Steve Bannon was introduced and connected. The Dalai Lama? Apparently the next target. MIT channels helped arrange Japanese visas — and after the Miami Herald broke the story open? Ito’s own family flew once again on Epstein’s private plane.

The last time the documents show them in contact was in March 2019. Epstein was arrested just 4 months later, in July of 2019. That’s how close Ito was to the end. A true ride or die for Mr. Epstein.

None of this is speculation. Every claim here comes from primary source documents — the DOJ’s own “Epstein Library.” Every quote is exact. Every fact has a source attached for you to see. We believe that is truly important when reporting on the Epstein Network as it is all just so unbelievable without the reciepts.

WHO IS JOI ITO

Joi Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab from 2011 to 2019. Before that, he was a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and prominent figure in the worlds of creative commons, open source, and internet governance. He served on the board of the Mozilla Foundation and was a well known voice for innovation and decentralized systems. He was trusted by MIT to lead one of the most prestigious media research labs in the world — a position that came with access to billionaires, world leaders, and Nobel laureates. That trust is what makes what follows so difficult to read and why we are putting him in the spot light.

Joi Ito
Source: @Joi

I. THE LIE

The story Joi Ito told publicly has never changed. He sticks with it that he met Epstein at a conference. He did his research, he asked around! Whatever that even means. He knew Epstein had a conviction, but after talking to people he trusted, he came away thinking the situation was more complicated — more nuanced — than it looked.

But, the documents tell us a different timeline then he wants us to see.

Let’s start with the calendar. April 1, 2013. Epstein’s own records have a reminder:

“you want to take Woody to MIT and meet with Joicho (Joi) Ito this month.”
Source: EFTA02143028

Then May 22, 2013. Dinner at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. Who was there? Joi Ito. Ed Boyden. Woody Allen. Soon-Yi Previn. Source: EFTA02138097

Epstein’s calendar alert reads: “JE to see Joicho (Joi) Ito TODAY.” - EFTA02138948

Here’s the thing — the April reminder comes 7 weeks before that May dinner. 7 weeks. Epstein was already planning to bring Ito into his circle, into his network, before the dinner Ito would later point to as their introduction. So it wasn’t just a fuzzy memory or a compressed timeline. The conference story? It’s a fabrication of the entry point. It is a lie.

Now fast forward 2 months. July 2013. Ito flies to Epstein’s private island — via St. Thomas. Epstein’s staff coordinated the trip. Business class tickets, arranged. This is the first documented island visit we have of Mr.Ito, and it happened weeks after Ito claimed he had only just met Epstein at a conference. I keep repeating it because these lies are insane!

Then there’s this message. July 21, 2013. Joi Ito to Jeffrey Epstein: “I talked to Reid about your jail thing. He doesn’t judge people.”

Source: EFTA01756112

Same summer as the island trip. Reid Hoffman — who would become the second point in the Ito-Epstein-Hoffman triangle — had already been briefed about the conviction. And Ito’s message to Epstein is clear: Hoffman doesn’t judge people. That was the framing. That’s how Ito brought Hoffman into the relationship. It’s all right there in the record. And do not fear, we will be coming for Mr. Hoffman in the future as well.

II. THE MACHINE

From 2013 through 2018, Joi Ito wasn’t just running the MIT Media Lab. He was using his position to systematically hand Jeffrey Epstein access to some of the most important institutions, scholars, and government officials in the world. The documents record this in granular, uncomfortable detail:

THE SLUSH FUND

May 2, 2014. An email from Joi Ito to Jeffrey Epstein. Read it carefully:

“The slush fund, if it’s at MIT is easy. Should I send you the instructions? Will it be coming from Leon Black? How much?”
Source: EFTA01927709

So Ito was setting up an off the books fund inside MIT — routed through Epstein — and he was asking whether Leon Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management, was the source. One of the most vile humans out there. (Search my archive for all we have put out on him so far.) This directly matches the reported $5 million that Black channeled to the Media Lab through Epstein. The question of how much and from whom? Ito was coordinating it, in his own words.

Then November 2015. Epstein’s day schedule shows a 9am breakfast with Joi Ito. Later that same afternoon? A 3:30pm tentative meeting with Leon Black at Apollo, followed by a confirmed 4pm appointment with Black. Ito and Black, back to back on Epstein’s calendar. More than once might I add. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the financial architecture of the machine — visible in a single document.

THE HOFFMAN TRIANGLE

Reid Hoffman — co-founder of LinkedIn — was introduced to Epstein by Ito directly. Here’s the message:

“Guys. You have to meet each other at some point. I spent several days with Jeffrey expanding my world view.”
Source: EFTA01758649

Then the 3 men started coordinating island visits together. February 2014 — Ito confirms he’s flying from Vancouver, Canada to Epstein’s island. March 2014 — a calendar document asks whether Joi Ito and Reid Hoffman need to be coordinated to Zorro Ranch. September 2013 — a reminder notes a possible Ito and Hoffman island visit after October 15th.

Fast forward to June 2016. Epstein — already convicted for years, already reported on for years — directs his staff to order custom sweatshirts. Here’s his list of gift recipients:

“lets make sweatshirts for valeria chomsky, joi, martin reid thiel ruemmler and rothschild”
Source: EFTA02301991

The staff noted that sweatshirts had already been made for Joi and Reid in the past. This wasn’t a first gesture. It was a repeat one. Jeffrey really liked to give his merch to the network.

THE PUTIN MEETING

July 2014. Ito writes to both Epstein and Reid Hoffman togerther about a planned meeting with Vladimir Putinhimself. Ito had tried to bring Hoffman along but couldn’t change his schedule. Here’s what he wrote:

“I wasn’t able to convince Reid to change his schedule to go meet Putin with you. ;-)”
Source: EFTA01914954

The meeting was canceled days later — after Russia shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine. But let that land: Ito was the intermediary trying to arrange a meeting between a convicted sex offender paedophile and the president of Russia, with a Silicon Valley billionaire as the intended 3 attendee. That’s not interpretation. That’s what the document contains.

BANNON, GENSLER, AND MBS

March 2018. Ito texts Epstein that Mohammed bin Salman is coming to the MIT Media Lab. Adds to the message “Super secret.” Epstein responds that he’s with Steve Bannon.

Here’s the iMessage chain:

Ito: “MBS is coming to MIT media lab sat. (Super secret) are you meeting him in NYC?”
Epstein: “Here with Bannon.”
Source: EFTA01620984

Three days later, Epstein makes the introduction: “steve, joi joi, steve.” Ito later tells Epstein he “Connected SB with various folks” and suggests they discuss it.

Then May 2018. Ito brings Gary Gensler — then newly affiliated with MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, later Biden’s SEC Chair — to an Epstein meeting. Ito writes:

“Also maybe Gary Gensler who just joined me/Digital Currency Initiative depending on whether we can get the time to work.”
— EFTA02242963

THE FUND

February 2018. The financial relationship between Ito and Epstein reaches its most direct expression. Ito is structuring a new fund. Reid Hoffman has committed $15 million. Ito writes to Epstein:
“Reid said he will be OK with putting in 15M into the fund. Can you match with 15M? This would get me to the minimum 30M.”
Source: EFTA02521287

He keeps pursuing the co-investment through at least June 2018, asking Epstein to invest “at some level, even if not the entire 15M match with Reid.” By this point, the Miami Herald had been publishing its investigation for months! The story was broken, but I guess Joi really doesn’t judge people!

THE VISA ARRANGEMENT

April 2015. Ito’s MIT office arranges Japanese visas for Epstein and two assistants. Paperwork coordinated through MIT’s institutional channels — on behalf of a convicted sex offender — to help him travel internationally. That too, is on the record.

THE CYBER SECURITY THREAD & VINCENT IOZZO

July 2016. Joi Ito emails Jeffrey Epstein. He copies Reid Hoffman. The subject? Email and data security.

Ito mentions he’s been talking with someone named “Vincenzo.” He tells Epstein to get Vincenzo to “lock you down.” Then he adds something worth reading twice: hiring hackers to get dirt on political candidates was “a thing” right now.

That “Vincenzo” is consistent with Vincenzo Iozzo — a cybersecurity researcher whose extensive correspondence with Epstein’s office shows up across more than 2,300 documents in the DOJ Epstein Library. And here’s where it gets deeper: a redacted profile in a 2017 FBI counterintelligence file has been widely identified as matching his. That identification — and the full allegations tied to it — will be addressed in a future Last Page First intelligence series.

But even without that context, the email alone is striking. The director of the MIT Media Lab, in the summer of 2016, is advising a convicted sex offender on digital security — and casually noting that hacking political candidates is something people are doing right now.

III. THE INNER CIRCLE

The machine ran on institutional access, but the inner circle documents reveal something beneath all that — something personal. A relationship sustained over 6 years, close enough that Epstein was informed within hours of Ito’s daughter being born.

May 12, 2017. Ito’s daughter arrives. Epstein gets the news immediately. His text: “holy shit, it looks asian!” Ito fires back a racial joke about his own mother. Epstein forwards the birth announcement to his assistant, Karyna Shuliak. His first question to Ito after the birth? “when do i get the details.” He also joked about naming the baby Jeffrina.

This isn’t a donor talking to a university director. This is someone who believed he belonged inside Ito’s personal life — at the dinner table, in the delivery room, “naming” the child, joke or not.

The iMessage chain between Ito and Epstein runs from 2013 through 2019. It’s not formal. It’s not transactional. It’s a sustained personal correspondence between two people who considered themselves in each other’s lives. Midnight texts, pleanty of Island invitations. Baby announcements — strange birth details I just don’t think a normal person would tell a registered sex offender — Editorial notes on New York Times pieces.

November 2015: Epstein’s schedule shows a 9am breakfast with Ito. November 2014: Epstein’s staff arranges for Ito to be picked up at Fort Lauderdale and driven to Palm Beach. January 2016: Ito photoshops a picture of Epstein for an event. Lesley Groff’s response: “SOOOOOO Awesome!”

March 2016. Epstein meets a Buddhist ethics scholar at MIT. He texts Ito: “It was fun watching you talk to Tenzin. Next stop. The Dalai Lama.”

That’s the intimacy, dark twisted – and it’s why the betrayal lands the way it does.

IV. FINAL TEXT

On November 28, 2018, the Miami Herald published the first story in its Perversion of Justice series. It documented Epstein’s crimes with a level of detail and specificity that could no be minimized or explained away.

And in the days that followed, Joi Ito kept going.

December 5–6, 2018. An iMessage chain between Ito and Epstein—after the Herald stories dropped. Ito asks for funding for a researcher through MIT. Epstein replies:

“Cool. Let me figure out whether we can still do it through MIT considering all of the recent press stuff.”

Then: “Press brutality. Wow. Will need to cure cancer. To move this down the page.”

Ito’s response: “Yes... brutal.”

Brutal. That’s the word Joi Ito chose, and not for the victims, but for the press coverage.

And here’s what else was happening in those same weeks — November and December 2018, Epstein’s office arranged travel on his private plane for Ito’s wife Mizuka, their baby, and Joi himself. The car from Soho House to Teterboro Airport? Charged to Epstein’s card. The tail number: N212JE. One trip was canceled because Ito’s dog was sick, but the arrangements were still being made. The relationship was not over.

Let’s go back even further, shall we? April 2016. Epstein writes to Larry Summers: “reid hoffman danny hillis joi ito. all around?” He was still assembling the circle. February 2018 — the same period as the fund solicitation — the architecture was still being built.

Now to the end — the final documented contact in the released record is March 2019. Epstein forwards a New York Times editorial board piece to multiple people. Ito is among them.

“At the times?” Ito writes.

“Yup. Very very,” Epstein replies.

Ito’s response: *”:-/”*

That’s the last text in the record. March 2019. Epstein was arrested four months later. He died in federal custody four months after that.

Ito resigned from MIT on September 7, 2019. In his resignation statement, he said he had made a mistake in judgment. He said he was sorry, but he did not explain why the judgment continued for six long years. He did not explain why his family flew on the Lolita Express in December 2018. He did not explain the slush fund, or the Putin meeting, or the fund solicitation, or Steve Bannon, none of it has been explained!

MIT’s internal investigation concluded that Ito had driven the relationship. That post-conviction donations were driven by Ito specifically. That staff in his own office had given Epstein the nickname Voldemort — he who must not be named — because the concealment was so widely understood it had become a joke.

The institution trusted him with its name. The name became a door and Joi Ito kept that door open for six years, only closing it because the infamous JE was arrested.

The final text in the record is March 2019. ‘Brutal’ was the word he chose — not for the victims, but for the press coverage. The family flew on the plane anyway.

Truth is, this work takes all of us.

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