Last week’s release of thousands of emails and documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein revealed a few previously unknown communications between the late convicted sex offender and billionaire Microsoft board member Reid Hoffman. Following the release, when asked about the files, President Trump called for an investigation of Democrats including Hoffman, whom he called a “sleazebag.” ABC News reported:
Following Trump’s call for an investigation, Hoffman responded in a series of social media posts calling for all the Epstein files to be released.
“Trump should release all of the Epstein files: every person and every document in the files,” Hoffman wrote. “I want this complete release because it will show that the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander. I was never a client of Epstein’s and never had any engagement with him other than fundraising for MIT.”
“I refuse to bend the knee to Donald Trump and his slanderous lies,” he added.
When Hoffman publicly apologized in September 2019 for his role in the scandal around Epstein and the MIT Media Lab, the apology came with a telling admission: “By agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.” He further stated he had invited Epstein to an August 2015 dinner at the behest of Joi Ito, because Ito had told Hoffman that Epstein had “successfully cleared MIT’s vetting process.”
Hoffman’s response was one of many examples of his penchant for blame-shifting and soft-playing his own culpability. Another is when he was caught last year wishing that he could have made President Trump an actual martyr, after which he later said, “I definitely regret having echoed the word martyr, which was pitched to me from the audience, and I echoed it. That was a mistake…I deeply regret having echoed that word.”
Who knew Hoffman had such a reverb effect?
Behind Hoffman’s public statements related to Epstein lie internal emails from MIT, which showed that the Media Lab leadership knew Epstein was a convicted sex offender and was cognizant of the reputational risk — indeed the documents show they treated him as an asset to be hidden. For example, the Goodwin Procter report released by MIT in January 2020 quotes Ito telling a staffer:
“There definitely is a lot of risk and I think about it a lot …”
And in another email:
“Jeffrey money, needs to be anonymous. Thanks.”
These are not ambiguous statements. They plainly show that the Media Lab knew about Epstein’s tainted status, yet actively concealed his identity as a donor.
Significantly, the report also recorded Hoffman’s connection. It noted that in July 2013:
“Epstein visited the MIT campus … during the visit, Ito escorted Epstein … and Professor [Ed] Boyden and Professor [Neil] Gershenfeld. … [Hoffman] also is a member of the Media Lab Advisory Council.” (emphasis added)
And in 2016, the report states:
“In July 2016, Ito sought advice from Reid Hoffman about whether to allow Epstein to attend a conference … ‘lots of people’ who may ‘see him and maybe know he’s involved.’”
That places Hoffman in the deliberations about Epstein’s presence in the Media Lab’s circle — not a passive observer but an advisor.
Hoffman’s defense, that he relied on Ito’s vetting, is laid bare in his email to Axios. “The abuse described by Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors is abhorrent … I am deeply regretful.”
Yet the internal MIT files reveal that the “vetting” Ito referenced was largely informal and conducted under the cloak of secrecy.
Further, Hoffman’s association (friendship? bond?) dated well before Ito became director of the Media Lab in 2011. The pair clearly spent not-insignificant amounts of quality time together, all over the world. Ito has a multitude of photo albums posted on the Flickr website, with a number of shots of Hoffman, which include this one that Ito’s archive describes as taken in Tokyo in 2007:
Reid Hoffman/PHOTO: Joi Ito (CC)
And Ito identifies this as taken on New Year’s Eve 2009 in San Diego:
Reid Hoffman/PHOTO: Joi Ito (CC)
Hoffman’s claim that he naively believed Ito as he misled or strung him along about Epstein being fully “vetted” seems far-fetched, given his longstanding connection to Ito.
In short: By 2015–2016, Hoffman had direct knowledge of Epstein’s status and the reputational risk of his presence. The Media Lab’s internal communications show Epstein was not simply a philanthropist—they knew they were dealing with someone whose public identity was toxic and yet continued to associate with him, secretly. Hoffman’s involvement in fundraising, advisory council participation, and direct consultation in the decision to host Epstein implicate him in the episode of institutional complicity.
Hoffman’s claim to be unaware of Epstein’s status is untenable, given the documentary evidence. At a minimum, he was not merely tangentially linked—he was part of a broader network that proactively protected Epstein’s social rehabilitation and masked the reputational hazard until the collapse of those protections.
(Pictured above: Reid Hoffman & Joi Ito, photo credit to MIT Media Lab (CC))
