Serial blame-shifter Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and tech venture capitalist, has shown up once again in association with political and sexual sleaze, and we can conclude nothing else other than that Microsoft, where he is on the board of directors, likes it that way.
In 2018, Hoffman apologized for funding an operation that spread disinformation on social media platforms about Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore during his campaign in the 2017 special election in Alabama. Essentially it was a dismissive “my bad” that got little attention and Hoffman was let off the hook.
Last year at the “summer camp for billionaires” in Sun Valley, Idaho, it was leaked that Hoffman told the assembled group of elites that he wished he had made Republican nominee and now current President Donald Trump an “actual martyr,” in response to a pressing inquiry from fellow tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel. Rather than fully own his offensive remarks (that should have earned him a Secret Service visit), Hoffman instead blamed his audience:
“I definitely regret having echoed the word martyr, which was pitched to me from the audience, and I echoed it. That was a mistake,” Hoffman told CNN. “It’s super important that we all as leaders strongly speak against physical violence in democracies and politics and everything else. I deeply regret having echoed that word.”
Pseudo-apologies mean so much more when you admit your echoes.
Then of course there’s Hoffman’s well-known association with Jeffrey Epstein. His connection to the now-dead pedophile was facilitated by mutual friend Joi Ito, who from 2011 to 2019 was the director of MIT’s Media Lab, for which Epstein and Hoffman helped him fundraise. Ito resigned in September 2019 after The New Yorker exposed the extent of Ito’s relationship with Epstein. After the Wall Street Journal reported on Hoffman’s involvement with Ito and Epstein in raising support for MIT — which included a dinner that Hoffman invited Epstein to to meet Silicon Valley leaders; plans for Hoffman and Ito to visit Epstein’s private island in March and November of 2014; plus travels together to Boston and later for an overnight stay at Epstein’s New York City townhouse followed by a “breakfast party” that included Bill Gates — Hoffman again dissembled when the Journal asked about these activities:
“It gnaws at me that, by lending my association, I helped his reputation, and thus delayed justice for his survivors,” Mr. Hoffman said in an email. He said he met with Epstein to discuss science projects at universities. “While I relied on MIT’s endorsement, ultimately I made the mistake,” he said, “and I am sorry for my personal misjudgment.”
Funding, not implementing (Roy Moore). Echoing, not declaring (Donald Trump). And it was more MIT’s fault than Reid’s.
Now this week the Daily Caller has reported that a MIT Lab conference “hosted a panel where attendees openly discussed the idea of using ‘child-size sex robots’ to treat pedophiles:”
The MIT Media Lab’s July 2016 conference on research questions without “social and moral constraints” included a panel discussion arguing that pedophilia should not be seen as a “moral failing” but rather a medical condition and that the development of “child-size sex robots” is an inevitability, a transcript and video of the event shows.
The Media Lab’s ties to the disgraced financier span a 17-year period in which the lab readily accepted Epstein’s cash donations and facilitated introductions with its scientists on-campus and off, according to a 2020 fact-finding report commissioned by the university. The lab’s director (Joi Ito) contemplated inviting Epstein to one of its conferences in July 2016, the report states, the same month of the conference where the child-size sex robots were proposed, the only conference the lab hosted that month, according to its website.
“Once child-size sex robots hit the market, which they will, is the use of these robots going to be a healthy outlet for people to express these sexual urges and thus protect children and reduce child abuse? Or is the use of these robots going to encourage, normalize, propagate that behavior?” said one panelist. “We can’t research it [because of reporting restrictions]. But I do wonder whether they’re doing more harm than good in these cases. Because as much as people want these sexual urges — the urges, not the act — to be a moral failing, they are a psychological issue.”
“The issue of normalization, as you brought up. How does that change of society as a whole, and the acceptance of certain kinds of behavior?” another panelist said, while warning about the possibility of the robots being diverted to a black market for entertainment. “The notion of studying sexual deviance and actual normal humans interacting with these things can provide the basis for a deeper understanding of how that operates.”
Daily Caller further explained Hoffman’s role with the Media Lab at the time:
Epstein donated $525,000 to the lab from 2013 to 2017, well after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18, according to [MIT’s] 2020 fact-finding report….
Epstein’s name was mentioned in connection to a July 2016 conference in the 2020 report, with Ito asking Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman – a member of the lab’s advisory council – whether to invite the disgraced financier to a conference that same month out of concerns he’d be recognized. People may “see him and maybe know he’s involved,” Ito wrote, per a footnote in the report. The conference where the “child-size sex robots” concept was pitched was the only conference in July 2016, the lab’s website shows. Epstein ultimately did not attend.
Epstein did visit the MIT campus at least nine times between 2013 and 2017, the report states. Hoffman joined one of these meetings. The report states Epstein brought “assistants” who were young women “on some visits” to campus, including a visit in 2016, which made staff uncomfortable.
Ito and Hoffman remain connected. On July 11, 2025, Ito announced a “Radical Transformation Award” and $68,000 cash prize underwritten by Hoffman at Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. Neither Hoffman nor the Chiba Institute responded to requests for comment.
The July 2016 conference also introduced for the first time the idea of a “Disobedience Award” – a $250,000 award underwritten by Hoffman, along with an orb-shaped trophy designed by former MIT Media Lab Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Neri Oxman. Epstein himself received one of these orbs for his status as a donor to the MIT Media Lab, the Boston Globe reported….
The MIT Media Lab began giving the Disobedience Awards at the subsequent summer conference, renamed from “Forbidden Research” to Defiance in 2017. The Media Lab hosted a ceremony honoring more Disobedience Awards recipients in November 2018.
Epstein said in a 2017 interview with Science Magazine that he supported the MIT Media Lab because the researchers there are “rebels who don’t fit in.”
So Ito and most importantly Hoffman were well aware of the hazards of Epstein attending the July 2016 conference for fear he’d be recognized. Hoffman, a member of the lab’s advisory council, certainly knew there’d be a panel on “child-size sex robots.”
And Hoffman fully funded the brand-new “Disobedience Award.” Controversial projects to address pedophilia certainly fit that description. What else was Hoffman behind on the Media Lab’s agenda, as he warmly welcomed Epstein to meet with his friends in Silicon Valley, plans were made for island trips and overnights at the NYC townhome, and breakfasting with Bill Gates?
Side question: Ito, whose friendship with Hoffman appears to extend back prior to his MIT days, looks like he joined other travels with the tech entrepreneur — here’s a photo Ito posted of Hoffman which is labeled as taken in Kyoto in 2007:
There are many more catalogued on Flickr in Ito’s photo library. Clearly more questions need to be asked of Hoffman related to his associations with MIT, Ito and Epstein. Every time the pressure is on him, he delivers a dismissive, half-mea-culpa answer, and then the media challenges him no further.
Hoffman’s conduct and Trump Derangement Syndrome already cost Microsoft whatever influence he formerly held on the Defense Innovation Board during the Biden administration.
As shareholders, NLPC has already twice called for his removal from Microsoft’s board of directors in letters to the company, and has similarly done so in pleas to the company’s shareholders to oppose Hoffman’s re-election to the board. As we stated in our 2023 letter to Microsoft’s board and reiterated in our 2024 letter, “What’s next to be revealed? Is the Company willing to wait and find out the next shoe that drops to see how embarrassing it is?”
Another shoe has dropped. Each footwear that falls seems to be more embarrassing, and damaging to the company’s reputation, than the previous ones.
Clearly our questions have been answered: Microsoft’s board condones Hoffman’s conduct and prefers to keep him around. While nearly every other high-profile tech executive has warmed up to the new presidential administration, Hoffman still resists. How pathetic, and how foolish for Microsoft to stand by him.
