Larry Summers going on leave at Harvard as university investigates ties to Jeffrey Epstein

Larry Summers announced Wednesday night that he would step aside from his teaching duties at Harvard University while the school investigates his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Summers, a former treasury secretary and ex-president of Harvard, also plans to go on leave as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, according to his spokesman, Steven Goldberg.

"His co-teachers will complete the remaining three class sessions of the courses he has been teaching with them this semester, and he is not scheduled to teach next semester," Goldberg told NBC News in a statement.

Summers has been in the national spotlight after the House Oversight Committee published more than 20,000 documents from Epstein's estate, including extensive email exchanges between the two men suggesting they were closer than had previously been known.

Harvard plans to investigate the links between university faculty members and the disgraced financier, a spokesman for the school confirmed to the campus newspaper earlier Wednesday.

In a statement to The Crimson, the student newspaper, university spokesman Jonathan L. Swain said Harvard 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."

Swain did not immediately respond to NBC News' multiple requests for comment.

In a separate development earlier Wednesday, Summers said he would resign from the board of directors at OpenAI, the technology giant that is helping power the artificial intelligence boom.

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

Summers, who was treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, joined OpenAI’s board in November 2023.

OpenAI's board of directors said it respected Summers' decision to resign. "We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the Board," the firm said in a statement.

In a statement Monday announcing his departure from "public commitments," Summers said he was "deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused."

"I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein," he said.

Summers said in the statement he would continue teaching at Harvard, where he was president from 2001 to 2006.

The emails released by the House show Summers and Epstein communicated as recently as 2019, more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. They continued to correspond until July 5, 2019, a day before Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking of minors.

In one batch of emails, Summers sought Epstein's advice on his relationship with an unnamed woman he described as a mentee. Epstein described himself as a "pretty good wing man." In another exchange, Summers lamented that men who "hit on" women in the workplace may suffer career repercussions.

Summers has not been accused of participating in any of Epstein’s alleged criminal behavior.

Two prominent news organizations are also ending their relationships with Summers. In an email this week, a spokesman for The New York Times said it does "not intend to renew" Summers' contract as a contributing writer for the opinion section. Summers is also no longer a paid contributor to Bloomberg, a spokesperson for the company told NBC News.

Summers was a frequent guest on Bloomberg's "Wall Street Week" program, which was shown on the Bloomberg cable channel in the United States and internationally and also went out on PBS stations around the country.

In the wake of the document release, Summers was named as a target for investigation by President Donald Trump, who was repeatedly named in the trove of communications. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said he ended his friendship with Epstein sometime in the 2000s.

Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social that he would ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Epstein's involvement with prominent Democrats, including Summers and Clinton.

Bondi responded to the post on X, writing that she was assigning Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to the matter.