Former United States Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from the OpenAI board after Congress released documents revealing a close connection between Summers and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers said he would be stepping back from all public commitments to allow himself to rebuild trust and repair relationships”.
"In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI," Summers said in a statement to Axios.
"I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress."
Summers was also a former Harvard president, and the university said it is set to launch an investigation into his connections to Epstein.
The investigation will also look into other university affiliates named in the documents, according to the university’s newspaper, where Summers is still a professor.
"Larry has decided to resign from the OpenAI Board of Directors, and we respect his decision. We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the Board," OpenAI 's board of directors said in a statement.
Trump has ordered the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Summers and other democrats' connections to Epstein to shift attention away from his own relationship with the convicted sex offender.
Trump’s handling of the Epstein situation was one of the reasons cited for the decline in his approval rating to a new low of 38%, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Only 20% of Americans approve of how Trump handled the issue.
Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein's ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death in a Manhattan jail in 2019, which was ruled a suicide.
This also comes as Trump signed a bill to compel the Justice Department to release more files related to Epstein.
Initially fighting against the release of the Epstein files, calling the issue a “hoax”, Trump recently reversed course in recent days once it became clear the House of Representatives would pass legislation.
