Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board and Harvard launches new investigation after new Epstein ties are uncovered | EUROtoday

Larry Summers, the previous president of Harvard University, has resigned from the board of OpenAI after a tranche of emails between him and the convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein had been launched.

Harvard University has launched an pressing investigation into the emails and his alleged ties with Epstein, whom he contacted as just lately as 2019. Summers’ resignation got here after it was revealed that he repeatedly contacted Epstein from November 2018 to July 2019, asking the disgraced financier for relationship recommendation.

Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.

A couple of days in the past, Summers, who additionally served as former President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary and former President Barack Obama’s director of the National Economic Council, stepped again from all upcoming public engagements.

“In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,” Summers mentioned in a press release. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress.”

Summers joined the board of administrators in 2023.

He signed on to the corporate, now value an estimated $750 billion, throughout a turbulent interval when co-founder Sam Altman was briefly ousted as CEO.

“We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the Board,” a press release learn.

Summers additionally resigned from Santander Bank’s worldwide advisory board, which he chaired, Reuters reported, citing an organization spokesperson. He had been on the board since 2016.

Summers and Epstein’s correspondence was included within the textual content messages and emails launched earlier this month by the House Oversight Committee, shortly earlier than Congress voted to launch the Epstein information in full.

In emails, Summers expressed concern that an unnamed girl was hesitant to finish their relationship as a result of she valued his “professional connection.”

Since 2005, Summers has been married to PBS’ Poetry in America host Elisa New.

In response, Epstein, describing himself as Summers’ “wing man,” mentioned the unnamed girl was “doomed to be with you.”

“Think for now I’m going nowhere with her except economics mentor,” Summers wrote in November 2018. “I think I’m right now in the seen very warmly in rear view mirror category.”

A spokesperson for Summers advised The Harvard Crimson that the unnamed girl was by no means a pupil of Summers’s on the prestigious college.

In one other message, Summers forwarded an e mail from macroeconomist Keyu Jin, which requested for suggestions. He advised Epstein that it was “probably appropriate” to delay his response.

“She’s already begining to sound needy 🙂 nice,” replied Epstein, in a chilling message.

When approached by The Crimson concerning the messages, Summers mentioned that he had “great regrets in my life.”

“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” he added.

Summers was not in workplace as Harvard’s president when sending the emails, however a 2003 article by The Harvard Crimson detailed a “special connection” between the then-president and Epstein. According to the article, Epstein had donated $30 million as a part of a “series of donations” made “anonymously.”

In different emails, seen by the BBC, Summers mentioned he was “best off a million miles away” from President Donald Trump, as a result of now-president’s “Putin proximity,” “mindless response” to Fidel Castro’s loss of life, and his “approach to conflict of interest.”

Harvard spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain advised The Crimson that “the University is conducting a review of information concerning individuals at Harvard included in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents to evaluate what actions may be warranted.”

The sweeping investigation will even look into different individuals named within the emails who’ve a reference to Harvard, together with Summers’s spouse.

Trump has lengthy denied any wrongdoing in relation to the Jeffrey Epstein case and says that he threw the intercourse offender out of his Mar-a-Lago membership for being a “sick pervert.”

Messages written by Epstein alleged that Trump “knew about the girls,” one thing the president has immediately refuted by saying, “I know nothing about that.”

However, the commander-in-chief has known as for an investigation into Summers and Bill Clinton.

“Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!” he raged on Truth Social. “Ask Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers about Epstein, they know all about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”

Hoffman, who mentioned he solely had contact with Epstein whereas fundraising for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote on X final week, “Trump should release all of the Epstein files: every person and every document in the files.”

The Independent has contacted OpenAI, Larry Summers, Harvard University, and The Clinton Foundation for remark.

Rachel Dobkin contributed to this reporting.