Summers Resigns Following Release of Epstein Communications
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has stepped down from the OpenAI board just days after Congress made public a large collection of emails involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which revealed discussions about personal relationships.
Summers, who previously served as Harvard University’s president and is currently a professor there, is now the subject of a university inquiry into his links with Epstein, according to The Harvard Crimson. The student newspaper also reported that Summers plans to scale back his public engagements.
His resignation follows the decision by both chambers of Congress to release the Epstein files. In the days leading up to this, a House committee disclosed years of messages exchanged between Summers and Epstein, including one in which Summers asked Epstein for guidance about pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as his mentee.
The emails, sent between November 2018 and July 2019, show Summers—who was married at the time—appearing to acknowledge the imbalance of power between himself and the woman he was advising.
Details From the Released Messages and Epstein’s Arrest
In a March 2019 message, Summers wrote that the woman “must be very confused” and might want to distance herself while still holding on to the professional connection. Epstein, describing himself earlier in their exchanges as Summers’s “wing man,” replied in June 2019 that the woman was “doomed to be with you.”
Later communications show Summers saying that his “best shot” at a sexual relationship was the fact that the woman viewed him as “invaluable and interesting,” adding that she might feel she could not have that connection without “romance/sex.” Throughout June, Epstein encouraged Summers to “play the long game” and keep the woman in what he called a “forced holding pattern.”
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.
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