Former Clinton, Obama Advisor Quits Tech Board Over Jeffrey Epstein Emails

By Chris Spiker From Daily Voice

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from OpenAI's board of directors after years of emails were released between him and notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Summers, 70, said his departure from the firm behind ChatGPT follows his decision to withdraw from public commitments. Axios first reported his resignation on Wednesday, Nov. 19.

The former Harvard University president joined OpenAI's board in 2023 and helped restore CEO Sam Altman.

"I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress," Summers said in a statement.

OpenAI's board confirmed the resignation of Summers, who ran the US Treasury during then-President Clinton's final two years in office.

"We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the board," the board's statement read.

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers speaking at an event in Tempe, AZ, in March 2025.

Wikimedia Commons - Gage Skidmore

Summers' retreat from public life comes days after a House committee released more than 20,000 emails from the estate of Epstein, a New York financier and convicted sex offender who died in August 2019. The emails showed conversations between Summers and Epstein about politics, world events, and personal life topics.

In the emails, Summers also made sexist remarks, including a 2017 email when he wrote, "I observed that half the IQ In [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population."

Summers also sought romantic advice from Epstein, who's believed to have sexually abused hundreds of girls. The conversations continued into March 2019, even after an extensive Miami Herald investigation detailed Epstein's history of abuse, along with the "deal of a lifetime" he negotiated in the late 2000s to avoid federal charges.

On the day after the Herald published its findings, Summers wrote to Epstein, "U have returned to the press." The two then quickly started discussing a woman Summers was interested in romantically.

Summers has been married to longtime Harvard poetry professor Elisa New since 2005.

"im a pretty good wing man, no?” Epstein asked.

Summers replied that the woman didn't seem romantically interested in him.

"Think for now I'm going nowhere with her except economics mentor," he wrote.

Before his OpenAI resignation, Summers apologized in a separate statement to CNN.

"I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused," Summers said. "I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein."

New also associated with Epstein to support her academic projects, The Boston Globe reported. In 2014, she sought help from Epstein, a Harvard graduate, to secure a major donation for her work.

Epstein connected New with billionaire investor Leon Black, leading to a gift that "changed everything" for her.

"It really means a lot to me, all financial help aside, Jeffrey, that you are rooting for me and thinking about me," New wrote in a 2015 email to Epstein.

The previously unreported gift wasn't included in Harvard's 2020 review of Epstein's ties to the Ivy League university. Harvard said it will open a new review of Summers and anyone else related to the university who is also named in the newly released Epstein emails.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Harvard law professor, has called for the university to cut all ties with Summers.

"For decades, Larry Summers has demonstrated his attraction to serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to cozy up to a convicted sex offender demonstrates monumentally bad judgment," she told CNN. "If he had so little ability to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein even after all that was publicly known about Epstein's sex offenses involving underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation's politicians, policymakers, and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else."

President Barack Obama talks on the phone while National Economic Council director Larry Summers listens to the call in August 2010.

Wikimedia Commons - The White House

After his time at the Treasury, Summers served as Harvard's president from July 2001 to June 2006. He was also director of the National Economic Council under then-President Barack Obama from January 2009 to January 2011.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed both chambers of Congress with near-unanimous approval on Tuesday, Nov. 18. The legislation would compel the Justice Department to release all unclassified records related to Epstein.

The bill now awaits the signature of President Donald Trump, who has faced widespread criticism for his own ties to Epstein and his reluctance to release files in the case.