Dr. Larry Summers
Harvard confirmed that Summers will retire at the end of the current academic year, remaining on leave until that time. The departure marks the formal end of a long and often turbulent relationship with the institution he once led.
"I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year," Summers said in a statement. "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."
The resignation comes after Summers stepped back from his public commitments in November, following the House Oversight Committee's release of documents from Epstein's estate that included dozens of messages between the two men. The correspondence revealed that Summers and Epstein communicated regularly, even after Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida and prior to his 2019 federal arrest on sex trafficking charges. Summers has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
In the wake of the revelations, Summers also resigned from the board of AI company OpenAI, as well as positions with Bloomberg News, The New York Times, and the Center for American Progress.
Since stepping down as Harvard's president in 2006, Summers had held the Charles W. Eliot University Professorship, one of the institution's most distinguished academic posts. He was also co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard's Kennedy School.
"Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues," he said.
