To be fair, the media lab has an alternative funding model that draws primarily from private sources and not the government. The whole premise is that "there is

To be fair, the media lab has an alternative funding model that draws primarily from private sources and not the government. The whole premise is that "there is all this private billionaire/corporate/sovereign money sitting around, let's use it for research". This is in contrast to grants, etc. Note that MIT's central fundraising office seems to have not been in the know - I don't think this reflects badly on the rest of the institute (yet)