larry summers
Cameron Costa | CNBC
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Monday that he is withdrawing from all public commitments due to the fallout from the release of emails between him and notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my poor decision to continue to communicate with Mr. Epstein,” Summers said in a statement obtained by CNBC.
“While I continue to fulfill my teaching duties, I am stepping back from public life as part of a broader effort,” Summers, a former Harvard president who teaches at the school, said in a statement.
Summers is a member of OpenAI’s board of directors. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg News.
CNBC has reached out to OpenAI for comment.
Summer’s statement, which came after Harvard University’s newspaper The Crimson published an article detailing his emails with Epstein, came to light last week after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more than 20,000 documents obtained under a subpoena from Epstein’s estate.
The Crimson noted that as Summers “pursued a romantic relationship with a woman he claimed to be a mentee, he sought guidance from his longtime colleague, convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.”
Emails and text messages between the two from November 2018 to July 2019 show Summers, who is married, “sought advice from Epstein about tracking women,” the paper said.
“Mr. Epstein quickly chimed in with assurances and offers, and in one message in November 2018 described himself as a ‘collaborator’ of Mr. Summers,” the Crimson noted.
“Right now, I have no intention of going anywhere with her other than as an economics instructor,” Summers wrote in the same month. “I think I’m now in a category that’s very warm in the rearview mirror.”
“She must be very confused. Or maybe she wants to cut ties with me, but she’s holding off because she really wants a professional connection.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Harvard Law School professor, told CNN that Harvard should sever ties with Summers.
Warren said Summers “cannot be trusted” with students given his past relationship with Epstein.
“Larry Summers has shown for decades that he is attracted to serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to side with a convicted sex offender shows extremely poor judgment,” Warren told CNN. “If he is so incompetent to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein despite the public knowledge of his sexual crimes against underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers, and institutions, nor to teach generations of students at Harvard and other universities.”
Epstein committed suicide in August 2019, weeks after being arrested on child prostitution charges.
This is breaking news. Please refresh to check for updates.
