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Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is retiring from Harvard University following a review of his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Summers will step down as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and relinquish all other academic and faculty positions. This move follows the resignation of Nobel Prize-winner Richard Axel from Columbia University over similar links to the convicted sex offender.
The justice department has released millions of documents from its investigation into the convicted paedophile, who died in a New York jail in 2019.
Neither Summers nor Axel has been accused by any Epstein survivor of misconduct, and there is no publicly available evidence indicating they were involved in any of the sex offender's crimes.
Harvard said in a statement on Wednesday that Summers' exit was "in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein".
Summers wrote in a statement that his decision had been "difficult".
"Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor," he added, "I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues."
Summers said last November that he was taking leave while the college investigated his Epstein links. He also expressed "regret" over the controversy while addressing students in a Harvard class.
The Epstein files indicated that Summers corresponded with Epstein until the day before the financier's 2019 arrest for alleged sex trafficking of children.
A decade earlier, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
Summers messaged Epstein in November 2018 seemingly asking for romantic advice related to his interest in someone he said viewed him as an "economics mentor".
"Think for now I'm going nowhere with her except as an economics mentor," Summers wrote in one exchange where Epstein referred to himself as Summers' "wing man".
The emails also indicated that Summers and Epstein dined together frequently, with Epstein often trying to connect Summers to prominent global figures.
After those emails were made public, Summers quit the board of OpenAI.
Summers held senior posts under two US presidents: treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and director of the National Economic Council under Barack Obama. He led Harvard from 2001-06.
