Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from the board of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, just days after Congress released a trove of documents detailing his extensive email exchanges with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The revelations included intimate details that have sparked widespread scrutiny.
Summers, who also previously served as president of Harvard University and remains a professor there, faces further investigation. Harvard's student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, reported that the university will launch its own probe into Summers' connections with Epstein. The newspaper also indicated that Summers plans to step back from other public commitments.
Epstein Files Detail Controversial Exchanges
Summers' departure from the OpenAI board comes shortly after both the House and Senate voted to release the previously sealed Epstein files. Over the past few days, a House panel made public years of email correspondence between Epstein and Summers. Among the most controversial exchanges was one in which Summers sought Epstein's advice on pursuing a relationship with a woman he described as a mentee.
These email exchanges, which occurred between November 2018 and July 2019, reveal Summers—who was married at the time—appearing to acknowledge his position of power over the woman he was mentoring.
“She must be very confused or maybe wants to cut me off but wants professional connection a lot and so holds to it,” Summers wrote to Epstein in a March 2019 email.
Epstein, who early in their correspondence referred to himself as Summers' "wing man," offered unsettling advice. In a June 2019 text, Epstein told Summers, "She is doomed to be with you."
Later messages further exposed the nature of their discussions. Summers wrote that his "best shot" at getting his mentee to ostensibly sleep with him was if the woman found him "invaluable and interesting" and believed "she can’t have it without romance/sex." Throughout June, Epstein encouraged Summers to play the "long game" and keep the woman in a "forced holding pattern."
Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.
