Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, will step down from teaching at the end of the academic year, a university spokesperson has confirmed.
A Harvard spokesperson, Jason Newton, said Summers’s formal resignation is linked to an ongoing university review of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the US government.
Summers has also resigned as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, a role he has held since 2011. He will remain on leave until the academic year concludes.
The development was first reported by the Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper.
Summers, a prominent economist and former US treasury secretary, announced in November 2025 that he would stop teaching while Harvard carried out its investigation.
In a statement shared with the Guardian, Summers said the decision to leave was “difficult”.
“I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago,” he said.
He added that, as president emeritus and a retired professor, he looked forward to continuing work on research, analysis and commentary on global economic issues.
Scrutiny of Summers intensified after emails released by the US House oversight committee in 2025 renewed questions about his relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges involving minors.
The emails suggest a friendship that continued until shortly before Epstein’s arrest in July 2019. In the correspondence, the two discuss politics, philanthropy and personal matters, including women.
In several messages, Epstein refers to himself as Summers’s “wingman” and offers advice on Summers’s romantic pursuits. In one exchange, Summers described himself as an “economic mentor” to a woman he was interested in.
Summers, 71, was a leading figure in Democratic policy circles for decades. He served as US treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and later as director of the White House National Economic Council during Barack Obama’s first term, helping to steer the administration through the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
He was president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006. During that period, Epstein donated more than $9m to the university and its affiliated programmes.
Epstein was also appointed a visiting fellow in Harvard’s psychology department. The university later said he lacked the academic qualifications normally required for the role and was unqualified to pursue the proposed research.
Harvard stopped accepting donations from Epstein after he pleaded guilty to child sex offences in 2008.
