Larry Summers

Harvard opened a review of university-linked individuals named in the new Epstein documents. Summers subsequently announced that he would permanently leave his teaching position at the end of the 2025–2026 academic year.

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Directly implicated

The National Bureau of Economic Research ended Summers' affiliation in March 2026 after examining his conduct. Reuters also reported that he had received a lifetime ban from the American Economic Association.

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Directly implicated

Emails published in 2025 showed highly personal exchanges between Summers and Epstein, including comments about women and advice sought from Epstein concerning a romantic relationship with a woman described as a mentee.

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Personally implicated

Following publication of the Epstein emails, Summers announced that he was stepping back from several public commitments and subsequently resigned from OpenAI's board of directors.

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Directly implicated

Donald Trump asked the Department of Justice to investigate Epstein's ties to Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman and other figures.

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Directly implicated

Emails showed that Epstein had considered donating $500,000 to Poetry in America, a project run by Summers' wife Elisa New, and ultimately paid $110,000 in 2016 to Verse Video Education, the organisation supporting the project. Summers had also discussed philanthropic projects connected to New with Epstein.

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In 2022, Summers argued that returning inflation to target might require a prolonged period of substantially higher unemployment, citing several possible scenarios. In 2023, falling inflation without a comparable surge in unemployment prompted criticism that his scenarios had been excessively pessimistic.

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Summers became one of the most prominent Democratic critics of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, warning that excessive stimulus could cause overheating and persistent inflation. The criticism sparked sharp disagreement with the Biden administration and parts of the Democratic left.

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Directly implicated

Publicly released emails showed that Summers maintained regular correspondence with Epstein until shortly before the latter's arrest in 2019, on economic, philanthropic, political and personal matters.

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As Director of the National Economic Council, Summers played a major role in shaping Obama's stimulus package. Later accounts showed that significantly larger stimulus scenarios had not been presented to the President in the final memo, fuelling allegations that the response had been undersized.

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Close aide

Harvard's treatment of economist Andrei Shleifer, a close friend and protégé of Summers, fuelled accusations of favouritism following Harvard's $26.5 million settlement in a conflict-of-interest case linked to an advisory programme in Russia.

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Following several years of conflicts with faculties, the 2005 no-confidence vote and renewed institutional tensions, Summers announced that he would leave the Harvard presidency at the end of the academic year.

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At an NBER conference, Summers advanced several hypotheses to explain women's underrepresentation in science, including possible differences in the distribution of abilities. The remarks triggered an outcry and, in March, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a no-confidence motion by 218 votes to 185.

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Shortly after becoming Harvard president, Summers held a contentious meeting with Cornel West about his academic work, political commitments and spoken-word album. The breakdown contributed to West's move to Princeton and a major crisis with some faculty members.

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In a speech at Harvard, Summers condemned rising antisemitism and stated that certain calls for divestment from Israel and campus initiatives were antisemitic in their effects, even if that was not necessarily their intention. The remarks triggered an intense debate over the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism.

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As Treasury Secretary, Summers publicly supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which removed longstanding barriers between commercial banking, investment banking and insurance. After 2008, critics linked this deregulation to fragility in the financial system.

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Directly implicated

An internal memo issued under Larry Summers' name while he was chief economist of the World Bank developed, in provocative terms, an economic argument for a greater concentration of polluting industries in low-wage countries. Its leak triggered an international controversy.

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