Plus, the newspaper article is really poorly written, offering no evidence of perpetual motion.
It is well known that magnets can cause motion and acceleration. Even permanent magnets (acceleration is generally done with changing fields requiring a constant input of energy). But that bleeds the magnetism out of the magnet. In other words, there is no mention of measuring the magnetic field of the permanent magnet before and after the demonstration (or if demonstration of energy was sufficient to cause a measurable decrease in the magnetic field if one were happening).
Magnets are a very popular source in supposed perpetual motion machines with lots of overlooked energy inputs and outputs.
If the MIT guy is both qualified and truly uncertain then I'm sure this was all accounted for at the demonstration but not explained in the article.
[ETA: Yeah, GD said it before me]
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