Hold on tight if you thought Jeffrey Epstein’s contact list could get worse. Harvard President and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is again in the news thanks to leaked records from the Wall Street Journal and the House Oversight Committee.
The most revealing evidence may be in his inbox. According to the reports, Summers, an influential leader under both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, had a close connection with the convicted s– offender. We’re talking about raising money for his wife’s poetry project and love guru-style breakdowns. Not exactly what you’d expect from a former U.S. Treasury Secretary. The documents made public this week show that Summers often followed Epstein’s advice on an extensive list of topics, such as dating issues and money.
Summers opened up to Jeffrey Epstein about an unnamed woman in a very odd exchange in March 2019, writing that their phone call “was not of good feeling.”
This is what Summers grumbled about (though we fixed the grammar),”I didn’t want to be in a gift-giving competition while being the friend without benefits.”
Love guru Jeffrey Epstein gave his advice: “[S]hes smart… making you pay for past errors… annoyed shows caring.” The convicted sex offender said this to the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, barely four months ahead of Epstein’s arrest on federal charges of sex trafficking. More emails show that Summers forwarded messages from other women to Jeffrey Epstein, who wrote back:
“She’s already beginning to sound needy [smiley emoticon] nice.”
“DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT” said Larry Summers, former President of Harvard, to known pedophile Jeffery Epstein. Photo unrelated. https://t.co/G0t0ggacax pic.twitter.com/vMaY8Znnt9
— dei youngboy (@AntifaScoundrel) November 12, 2025
The tone of these talks points out how common Epstein’s access to power had become, even with his trial in 2008. Yet they also had a professional relationship. The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2014, Summers asked Epstein for advice on “small-scale philanthropy” so as to raise $1 million for his wife, Harvard professor Elisa New, to set up an online American poetry project.
Summers proposed a dinner to talk about it in a note to Epstein, “I need small-scale philanthropy advice. My life will be better if I raise $1m for [Elisa].”
Epstein was happy to do so.
That year, the two crossed paths several times, including at a Massachusetts restaurant. A non-profit connected to Epstein gave $110,000 to New’s educational project in 2016. A spokesperson for Summers said the couple “deeply regrets” interacting with Jeffrey Epstein and that New’s nonprofit paid back more than it was given to an organization that fights trafficking.
By then, Harvard had separated itself from Jeffrey Epstein’s grants. But according to the WSJ, Summers met Epstein several times between 2013 and 2016. Other celebrities were circling Epstein besides Summers — former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, filmmaker Woody Allen, and billionaire Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. However, Summers’s case is odd as he used to rely on Epstein for financial and personal advice. Yet now the same man serves as a member of the OpenAI board.
