According to TechCrunch, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from OpenAI’s board just days after Congress released extensive email exchanges with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The emails, exchanged between November 2018 and July 2019, show Summers seeking Epstein’s advice about pursuing a relationship with a woman he described as a mentee while he was married. In one March 2019 email, Summers wrote that his mentee “must be very confused or maybe wants to cut me off but wants professional connection a lot and so holds to it.” Epstein, who referred to himself as Summers’s “wing man,” told him in June 2019 that the woman was “doomed to be with you.” The resignation comes one day after both the House and Senate voted to release the Epstein files, and Harvard University has announced it will open its own probe into Summers’s connections with Epstein.
Boardroom fallout
This is pretty stunning timing. Summers steps down literally the day after Congress votes to release these files? That’s not a coincidence. OpenAI, which has been trying to position itself as an ethical AI leader, now has a board member resigning over connections to one of the most notorious sex criminals in modern history. And we’re not talking about casual acquaintances here – these are detailed emails where Epstein is actively coaching Summers on how to pursue this woman.
Think about the optics here. OpenAI’s been dealing with enough controversy around AI safety and governance. Now they’ve got this? The board probably saw those emails and realized there was no way Summers could stay. The organization’s been trying to rebuild trust after the whole Sam Altman firing and rehiring drama, and this is the last thing they needed.
Harvard investigation
Harvard’s opening its own probe, according to The Harvard Crimson. Summers is still a professor there, and he’s stepping back from public commitments. This is his second major controversy at Harvard – remember he resigned as president back in 2006 after making comments about women’s scientific abilities.
Here’s the thing: these emails show Summers acknowledging his power over this woman. He writes that his “best shot” is that she finds him “invaluable and interesting” and that “she can’t have it without romance/sex.” That’s someone explicitly recognizing the power dynamics at play and still pursuing the relationship. Epstein’s advice to play the “long game” and keep her in a “forced holding pattern” is just chilling.
Broader implications
This isn’t just about Summers. The Epstein files release is going to keep causing collateral damage across business, politics, and academia. We’re seeing the first domino fall, but how many more will there be? The Congressional vote to release these documents was bipartisan, which tells you how significant this is.
For OpenAI specifically, this raises serious questions about their vetting process. Did they know about Summers’s Epstein connections? If they did, why did they think it was acceptable? If they didn’t, what does that say about their due diligence? Either way, it’s a bad look for an organization that’s supposed to be building the future responsibly.
What’s next
I suspect we’ll see more resignations and stepped-back roles as these files continue to be analyzed. The detailed reporting from student journalists at Harvard shows how much digging is happening right now. Summers was a major figure in economic policy and academia – if he’s going down this quickly, who else is vulnerable?
Basically, this is just the beginning. The Epstein files release was always going to be explosive, but seeing it play out in real time with immediate consequences like this? That’s something else entirely. And for OpenAI, they’ve got another crisis to manage while trying to focus on actually building AI systems. Not ideal.
