{"id":61505,"date":"2025-11-20T04:21:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T04:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61505\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T04:21:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T04:21:26","slug":"larry-summers-resigns-from-openai-board-over-epstein-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61505\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board over Epstein connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and Harvard president, on Wednesday announced his resignation from the board of OpenAI, in light of the release of emails documenting his years-long correspondence with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,\u201d Summers said in a statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco-based company thanked Summers for his work: \u201cWe appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summers was appointed to OpenAI\u2019s board<\/a> in 2023 during a tumultuous period when Sam Altman, who was briefly ousted, rejoined as CEO.<\/p>\n

Listen toThe Standard Podcasts<\/p>\n

Life in Seven SongsTuesday, Sept. 24<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Summers\u2019 resignation came after a House of Representatives oversight committee released (opens in new tab)<\/a> more than 20,000 pages of documents Nov. 12 containing email exchanges between Summers and Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

Summers, 70, announced Monday that he was stepping back from all public commitments, saying he was \u201cdeeply ashamed\u201d of his actions and took \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for continuing to communicate with Epstein.<\/p>\n

The correspondence revealed that Summers, a Harvard University professor, maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein long after the financier pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. <\/p>\n

Emails (opens in new tab)<\/a> showed Summers seeking Epstein\u2019s romantic advice, including one from March 2019 in which he described a woman\u2019s response with language critics said reflected poor judgment.<\/p>\n

The fallout for Summers has extended beyond OpenAI. The New York Times said (opens in new tab)<\/a> it would not renew his contract as a contributing opinion writer. The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank where he served as a distinguished senior fellow, and Yale University\u2019s Budget Lab have also ended their associations with him.<\/p>\n

Summers served as treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton and as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006 before becoming a tenured professor at the university.<\/p>\n

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has called on Harvard to sever ties with Summers, saying he \u201ccannot be trusted\u201d with students given his relationship with Epstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and Harvard president, on Wednesday announced his resignation from the board of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2007,3408,2792,101,103,102,104,106,105,995],"class_list":{"0":"post-61505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-openai","10":"tag-sam-altman","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}