Why would Bill Gates need Epstein to be the middle man for his $2 mil donation? Why didn't he just donate to the Media Lab directly?
And given his insistence that the donation be made anonymously, it seems like he was well aware the optics would be bad if the public knew there was a connection between the two, and yet he chose to make the donation through Epstein anyway.
Even though we won't find out more, this Epstein issue has given us a tiny glimpse to the mechanics of the plutocracy we really do live in.
It's pretty clear that for certain individuals higher up in the social hierarchy than most of us will ever see, Epstein offered a very exclusive service. And was part of a world of that we mostly think of as fiction. Similar to when the Snowden leaks happened we all saw that "yes, the government really does perform mass surveillance on the population", we are now seeing that "yes, the extremely wealth do play by completely different rules and shape our society in complex ways".
But we won't see much more. Joichi Ito is probably the least powerful person caught up in all this, and him and people like him provide the public retribution we all want to see. We'll see the justice has been served, and return the illusion that this was just a strange aberration rather than the status quo.
Probably the most astute comment on this entire thread. In particular the willingness of putatively skeptical and inquisitive people to accept the most transparent, dissembling excuses from the likes of Gates has been quite a sight to see.
Bill Gates has given many times personally to the Media Lab secretly. He gave on this occasion on Epstein's request. To him, this was just a financer asking if he could give some cash to the Media Lab, considering Gates had donated before, AFAIK.
Its hard for me to believe the emails were lies but I guess it is possible that Epstein lied to Ito about the money coming from Gates? Unless the money came from Gates' account and wasn't first transferred to an account controlled by Epstein, it will probably be hard to tell.
Many philanthropists will say "I wish to donate $X", and then ask a friend/group/organization, "Where would you like me to donate this?", hence a "directed donation".
Gates is denying Epstein was involved in this donation at all, despite the emails. Plus, Gates was well aware how unsavery Epstein was given his insistence the donation be made anonymously.
I didn't see anywhere in the article explaining the Gates wanted the donation to be anonymous. It looks like Peter Cohen of MIT wanted to not mention "Jeffery's name as the impetus for this gift."
This certainly doesn't look good for Bill Gates. I have trouble believing that Ito was lying in his 2014 email concerning the Gates donation. Possibly, he was mislead by Epstein but I can't think of any reason Ito himself would lie.
As someone else commented about a different aspect of the article, I'm doubt we will ever learn more.
The involvement of people like Gates and Hoffman, for whom Epstein's money was effectively chump change, certainly does pose the question of what else he was bringing to the table for people with that level of wealth.
And given his insistence that the donation be made anonymously, it seems like he was well aware the optics would be bad if the public knew there was a connection between the two, and yet he chose to make the donation through Epstein anyway.