Summers To Step Back From Public Commitments Amid Epstein Scandal

Updated November 19, 2025, at 8:06 p.m.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will step back from all public commitments in an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me,” he wrote in a statement Monday evening.

The announcement comes less than one week after seven years of correspondence between Summers and the disgraced financier Jeffrey E. Epstein were released by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. The documents showed Summers and Epstein continued to exchange messages until July 5, 2019 — just one day before Epstein was arrested on new sex-trafficking charges.

“I am 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,” Summers wrote to The Crimson.

He is currently a paid columnist at Bloomberg News and serves on the board of directors at Open AI. A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment on Summers’ future with the outlet on Monday.

“While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort,” he added in his statement.

Following the announcement, Summers began to leave a series of organizations where he had previously held appointments.

Summers stepped down from his position as an advisor to the Yale Budget Lab — a Yale University-based policy shop that offers financial modeling for policymakers and journalists — on Monday, according to a spokesperson for the group. His profile was removed from the lab’s website by Monday evening.

Summers also resigned from his fellowship at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. He had served as a senior fellow at the organization since 2012.

“Larry Summers has announced that he is stepping away from public comments immediately, and this includes ending his fellowship at CAP,” a spokesperson for the group wrote in a statement.

And Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the New York Times, wrote in a Tuesday morning statement to The Crimson that the outlet would part ways with Summers at the end of the year.

“Lawrence Summers was a contributing writer for New York Times Opinion on a one-year contract beginning in January, 2025,” he wrote. “We do not intend to renew this contract.”

He is currently a paid columnist at Bloomberg News and serves on the board of directors at Open AI. A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment on Summers’ future with the outlet on Monday.

In the hundreds of messages exchanged by Summers and Epstein — part of a cache of 23,000 documents released by the House Oversight Committee last week — Summers placed an extraordinary degree of trust in Epstein, confiding to him about his pursuit of a romantic relationship with an economist.

Summers’ decision to step back from public events comes less than one day after The Crimson published a detailed account of his messages with Epstein concerning the woman, who Summers described to Epstein as a mentee.

In one November 2018 message to Epstein, Epstein described himself as Summers’ “wing man,” before continuing to advise Summers on the relationship for months. In June 2019, the two men joked about the probability that Summers would have sex with the woman.

Summers currently holds Harvard’s highest faculty distinction as a University Professor. He also serves as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Summers will continue to direct the center, according to his spokesperson.

This semester, Summers is teaching five Harvard courses, including two large undergraduate classes, according to the University’s course search portal.

Summers has already faced a wave of backlash over his exchanges with Epstein. Earlier on Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) publicly called on the University to cut ties with Summers. The Justice Department has also moved to open an investigation into Epstein’s relationship with Summers and other prominent figures.

Correction: November 19, 2025

A previous version of this article misspelled the surname of New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander.

​​—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.