Email correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein

Larry Summers steps down from OpenAI

The former Treasury secretary faced pressure after his email correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein was released.

By Sam Sutton

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from the board of directors of the OpenAI Foundation, the latest development in the fallout following the release of emails showing that he sought romantic advice from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,” Summers said in a statement. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company, and look forward to following their progress.”

Summers, a fixture of Democratic policy and economic circles, is a longtime Washington insider who was brought onto the board of the nonprofit that runs OpenAI after a highly public boardroom coup that briefly saw the ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. At the time, Summers was viewed as a stabilizing force, a consummate insider who would help the controversial startup navigate complex political, corporate and academic networks that would be instrumental to its success.

In a statement, the members of OpenAI’s board said that “we respect his decision. We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the Board.”

Severing ties with OpenAI — a startup that’s worth an estimated $750 billion and a key player in an artificial intelligence ecosystem that’s now a major economic force — is indicative of how quickly Summers has fallen out of favor.

The former Treasury Secretary announced earlier this week that he would be stepping back from public commitments as backlash mounted over his relationship with Epstein, who killed himself while in custody in 2019 on sex trafficking charges. Summers, who served as president of Harvard University and is now a tenured professor at the institution, had maintained close ties to the disgraced financier well after Epstein was convicted on sex charges in 2008.

Those revelations elicited immediate rebukes from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and academics who’d repeatedly clashed with Summers, who maintained a reputation for sharp elbows as a longtime economic and political adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

In emails released by House Republicans last week, Epstein referred to himself as the “wing man” for Summers. In one exchange, the former Treasury Summers asked for Epstein’s input on how to navigate a potential romantic relationship with a mentee. In another, Summers suggested women in aggregate have lower IQ than men.

The revelation of those emails — which has occurred amid a broad reckoning of the bonds Epstein had managed to maintain across a galaxy of political, business and academic elites — forced Summers to step back from high-profile roles across several organizations. Since Monday evening, Summers has stepped down from roles at the Center for American Progress, Bloomberg News, the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The New York Times said it would not renew his contract as a contributor.

Summers has said that he will continue to teach. Late Tuesday, the Harvard Crimson reported that the university had opened an investigation into Epstein’s links to Summers and other Harvard affiliates.