Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University, will resign from teaching at the end of the academic year, a spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian. The resignation comes “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government”, said Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton.
Summers also stepped down as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, a role he held since 2011. He will remain on leave until the end of the academic year. The news was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.
In a statement, Summers called the decision “difficult” and expressed gratitude to students and colleagues. “Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis and commentary on a range of global economic issues,” he said.
Emails released by the US House oversight committee in 2025 reignited questions about Summers’s relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors. The messages indicated a friendship that lasted until shortly before Epstein’s arrest in July 2019. In the emails, Summers and Epstein discussed politics, philanthropy, and women, with Epstein referring to himself as Summers’s “wingman”.
Summers served as Harvard’s president from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programmes between 1998 and 2008, overlapping with Summers’s tenure. Epstein was also appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research in the university’s department of psychology, though Harvard later concluded he lacked the required qualifications.
