Summers out at Harvard, OpenAI amid Epstein furor

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers

(Image credit: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

What happened

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers on Wednesday took leave from his teaching and directorial duties at Harvard University and also stepped down from the board of OpenAI, amid new allegations about his cozy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The university on Tuesday told The Harvard Crimson it was reopening an investigation into “individuals at Harvard included in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents,” a group that included Summers.

Who said what

Summers, who served as Treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 and Harvard’s president from 2001 to 2006, is “among the highest-level U.S. personalities to pay a price for his relationship to Epstein,” Reuters said. Emails released by the House last week showed the two men communicating up until 2019 — long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on soliciting sex from a minor and shortly before he was arrested and died of suicide in prison. In 2018, Summers, who is married, sought his advice on pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman who viewed him as a mentor, leading Epstein to call himself Summers’ “wingman.”

Summers announced Monday that he was “stepping back” from his public commitments, and on Tuesday he told his economics class that despite his “regret” and “shame” over the Epstein emails, “I think it’s very important that I fulfill my teaching obligations” for “a time,” according to online footage posted by students. Along with reversing course on teaching, Summers has “shed a number of other positions this week,” The New York Times said, including affiliations with Santander bank and several prominent think tanks, and as a contributor to Bloomberg and the Times.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

What next?

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a law that compels the Justice Department to release its cache of Epstein investigation files within 30 days. It’s “unlikely” we will see “potent new evidence of criminal misconduct” in those files, said Politico’s Ankush Khardori, “but I expect a whole lot of embarrassing stuff to come out. And we got a preview this week with the stuff on Larry Summers.”

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.