Newly released Justice Department documents show that Jeffrey Epstein helped cover living costs, including school tuition, for a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence researcher. The records, part of a fresh batch of Epstein files, include accounting entries and invoices that tie the financier to deposits for a private school in Menlo Park. The disclosure adds a local twist to broader reporting on wealthy donors supporting researchers at elite institutions.
According to SFGATE, the documents list payments for relocation, rent, flights, medical expenses, and school fees for researcher Joscha Bach, including an Epstein-accountant note recording a $5,100 deposit for tuition in March 2019 and a separate $6,616 tuition invoice for Alto International School in Menlo Park.
What the DOJ release contains
The material was posted by the Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with the agency saying its January 30 production included more than 3 million responsive pages plus thousands of images and videos. CBS News and other national outlets have since mined that trove for emails, invoices and related records tying Epstein to researchers and institutions.
Bach, MIT and the academic ties
An independent MIT fact-finding report from 2020 showed Epstein’s post-conviction donations helped underwrite work at the Media Lab and that several gifts in 2013-14 were directed to support Joscha Bach’s research; the report is available in full from MIT’s published review. The MIT fact-finding report details the scale and timing of those gifts.
Separately, newly public emails included exchanges between Bach and Epstein in 2016 that touched on race and gender and drew scrutiny when they surfaced; reporting on those messages and the fallout appears in national outlets. The New York Times and others have described the exchanges and the wider context of Epstein’s links to academe.
Bach's response and Bay Area ties
Bach, who now runs the California Institute for Machine Consciousness in San Francisco, told reporters he accepted Epstein’s help out of financial necessity while on underpaid postdoc roles and that the payments stopped after Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, per SFGATE. He has posted on Substack saying he does not believe race determines intelligence and called judging people by ancestry or gender despicable, as reported by The Boston Globe.
Bach also notes that an O-1 visa in early 2019 and a position at the AI Foundation helped him become financially independent, and the newly released files and public reporting trace the shift from academic support to private-sector roles in the Bay Area. SFGATE has reported details about his move to the Bay Area and later roles.
What to watch next
The files have not produced public allegations of sexual wrongdoing against Bach; instead, reporting has focused on the financial ties, the email exchanges, and institutional oversight. The Justice Department’s public Epstein library now hosts the documents that researchers and local reporters are parsing for possible next steps and institutional responses. The Department of Justice maintains the release and related materials.
