Lawrence Summers

Template:Short description Template:Pp Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox officeholder Lawrence Henry "Larry" Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist. He served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001, as the 27th president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, and as the 8th director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010.<ref name="lawrence_h_summers_harvard_kennedy" /><ref name="harvard_facts">"Historical Facts", Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017</ref> Currently at Harvard Kennedy School, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor. He is on leave from his teaching reponsibilities and from his role as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government as of November 19, 2025.<ref name="lawrence_h_summers_harvard_kennedy" /><ref name="harvard_letter">Summers, Lawrence H. and John A. Haigh "From the Directors," About section, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017</ref><ref name="teaching">Template:Cite news</ref>

Summers became a professor of economics at Harvard University in 1983. He left Harvard in 1991, working as the Chief Economist of the World Bank from 1991 to 1993.<ref name="chief_economists_world_bank">"Former Chief Economists" Template:Webarchive, Data & Research office, The World Bank, retrieved March 31, 2017</ref><ref name="lawrence_h_summers_world_bank_live">"Lawrence H. Summers", World Bank Live, The World Bank, retrieved March 31, 2017</ref><ref name="lawrence_h_summers_harvard_kennedy">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1993, Summers was appointed Under Secretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton's administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury.<ref name="lawrence_h_summers_world_bank_live" /><ref name="lawrence_h_summers_harvard_kennedy" /><ref name="lawrence_summers_treasury_dept">"Lawrence Summers (1999–2001)," U.S. Treasury Department, Last Updated: November 20, 2010, retrieved March 31, 2017</ref> While working for the Clinton administration, Summers played a leading role in the American response to the 1994 economic crisis in Mexico, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the 1998 Russian financial crisis. He was also influential in the Harvard Institute for International Development and American-advised privatization of the economies of the post-Soviet states, and in the deregulation of the U.S. financial system, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27th president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he offered three reasons for the under-representation of women in science and engineering, including the possibility that there exists a "different availability of aptitude at the high end", in addition to patterns of discrimination and socialization.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

After his departure from Harvard, Summers worked as a managing partner at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co. Summers rejoined public service during the Obama administration, serving as the Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration's response to the Great Recession.<ref name="lawrence_h_summers_world_bank_live" /><ref name="lawrence_h_summers_harvard_kennedy" /> In November 2023, Summers joined the board of directors of artificial intelligence organization OpenAI, before resigning in November 2025 after revelations about his ties to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<ref name="open_ai_bod">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life and education

Summers was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 30, 1954, into a Jewish family. He was the son of two economists, Robert Summers (who changed the family surname from Samuelson) and Anita Summers (of Romanian-Jewish ancestry), who were both professors at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics: Paul Samuelson (brother of Robert Summers) and Kenneth Arrow (brother of Anita Arrow Summers). He spent most of his childhood in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he attended Harriton High School.

At age 16,<ref>Plotz, David."Larry Summers: How the Great Brain learned to grin and bear it.", Slate, June 29, 2001.</ref> he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he originally intended to study physics but soon switched to economics, graduating in 1975. He was also an active member of the MIT debating team and qualified for participation in the annual National Debate Tournament three times. He attended Harvard University as a graduate student, receiving his Ph.D. in 1982.<ref name="thesis-summers-1982">Template:Cite thesis</ref> In 1983, at age 28, Summers became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. He was a visiting academic at the London School of Economics in 1987.<ref name=lse>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

Academic economist

Summers in 1990

As a researcher, Summers has made important contributions in many areas of economics, primarily public finance, labor economics, financial economics, and macroeconomics. Summers has also worked in international economics, economic demography, economic history and development economics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1993 from the American Economic Association.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1987, he was the first social scientist to win the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation. Summers is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Some of his popular courses today, as Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, include American Economic Policy and The Political Economy of Globalization.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Public official

Summers was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan in 1982–1983. He also served as an economic adviser to the Dukakis Presidential campaign in 1988.

Chief Economist at the World Bank

Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as the Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist for the World Bank until 1993.<ref name="chief_economists_world_bank" /><ref name="lawrence_h_summers_world_bank_live" /><ref name="lawrence_h_summers_harvard_kennedy" />

According to the World Bank's Data & Research office, Summers returned to Washington, D.C., in 1991 as the World Bank's Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist. As such, Summers played a "key role" in designing strategies to aid developing countries, worked on the bank's loan committee, guided the bank's research and statistics operations, and guided external training programs.<ref name="chief_economists_world_bank" /> The World Bank's official site also reports that Summer's research included an "influential" report that demonstrated a very high return from investments in educating girls in developing nations.<ref name="chief_economists_world_bank" />

According to The Economist, Summers was "often at the centre of heated debates" about economic policy, as he was considered a "famous contrarian".<ref name="world_bank_contrarian">"New ideas: The World Bank hires a famous contrarian," July 18, 2016, The Economist, retrieved March 31, 2017</ref>

"Dirty industries" controversy

Template:Further In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo that was leaked to the press. Lant Pritchett has claimed authorship of the private memo, which both he and Summers say was intended as sarcasm.<ref name="furor_on_memo_1992_02_07_ny_times">"Furor on Memo At World Bank," February 7, 1992, The New York Times, retrieved March 30, 2017</ref> The memo stated that "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.<ref name="furor_on_memo_1992_02_07_ny_times"/> ... I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."<ref>Office Memorandum from Lawrence M. Summers, Subject: GEP, the World Bank/IMFMIGA, December 12, 1991. This was an internal memo at the World Bank, that was written, according to Lant Pritchett, by him, and co-signed by Larry. According to Pritchett, a young economist who worked for him at the time in an interview with John Cassidy of The New Yorker, it was not intended for the public – reportedly sarcastic, rather than sincere, according to its authors – that highlighted the economic logic of dumping waste in less-developed countries.</ref> According to Pritchett, the memo, as leaked, was doctored to remove context and intended irony.<ref name="harvardmag">Template:Cite magazine, also posted at: Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="furor_on_memo_1992_02_07_ny_times"/>

Service in the Clinton Administration

Summers as United States Secretary of the Treasury

In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs and later in the United States Department of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury.

Much of Summers's tenure at the Treasury Department was focused on international economic issues. He was deeply involved in the Clinton administration's effort to bail out Mexico and Russia when those nations had currency crises.<ref>A New Economic Team: The Nominee; The Administration's Fiscal Closer. The New York Times. May 13, 1999.</ref> Summers set up a project through which the Harvard Institute for International Development provided advice to the Russian government between 1992 and 1997. Later there was a scandal when it emerged that some of the Harvard project members had invested in Russia and were therefore not impartial advisors.<ref name="Sergi2009">Template:Cite book</ref> Summers encouraged then-Russian leader Boris Yeltsin to use the same "three-'ations'" of policy he advocated in the Clinton Administration – "privatization, stabilization, and liberalization".<ref>Naomi Klein, "The Shock Doctrine", p. 231</ref>

Summers pressured the Korean government to raise its interest rates and balance its budget in the midst of a recession, policies criticized by Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.<ref>Template:Cite news </ref> According to the book The Chastening, by Paul Blustein, during this crisis, Summers, along with Paul Wolfowitz, pushed for regime change in Indonesia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Summers was a leading voice within the Clinton Administration arguing against American leadership in greenhouse gas reductions and against US participation in the Kyoto Protocol, according to internal documents made public in 2009.<ref name="nsarchive-ebb303">Template:Cite news </ref>

As Treasury Secretary, Summers led the Clinton Administration's opposition to tax cuts proposed by the Republican Congress in 1999.<ref>Aides Say Clinton Would Veto Tax Compromise. The Washington Post. July 26, 1999.</ref>

During the California energy crisis of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed with Alan Greenspan and Enron executive Kenneth Lay to lecture California Governor Gray Davis on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation.<ref name="Krugman">Template:Cite news</ref> Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California's environmental standards in order to reassure the markets.<ref name="Gibney">Template:Cite web</ref>

Summers hailed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act): "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," Summers said.<ref name="NYTrepeal">Template:Cite news</ref> "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."<ref name="NYTrepeal"/> Many critics, including President Barack Obama, have suggested the subprime mortgage crisis was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act.<ref name="WSJquestions">Template:Cite news</ref> As a member of President Clinton's Working Group on Financial Markets, Summers, along with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Arthur Levitt, Fed Chairman Greenspan, and Secretary Rubin, torpedoed an effort to regulate the financial derivatives that many blame for bringing the financial market down in Fall 2008.<ref name="Frontline">Template:Cite news</ref>

Views on financial regulation

On May 7, 1998, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a Concept Release soliciting input from regulators, academics, and practitioners to determine "how best to maintain adequate regulatory safeguards without impairing the ability of the OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives market to grow and the ability of U.S. entities to remain competitive in the global financial marketplace."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On July 30, 1998, then-Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Summers testified before the U.S. Congress that "the parties to these kinds of contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies." At the time Summers stated that "to date there has been no clear evidence of a need for additional regulation of the institutional OTC derivatives market, and we would submit that proponents of such regulation must bear the burden of demonstrating that need."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1999 Summers endorsed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and commercial banks, saying "With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st Century."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

When George Stephanopoulos asked Summers about the 2008 financial crisis in an ABC interview on March 15, 2009, Summers replied that "there are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last eighteen months, but what's happened at A.I.G. ... the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching ... is outrageous."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In February 2009, Summers quoted John Maynard Keynes, saying "When circumstances change, I change my opinion", reflecting both on the failures of Wall Street deregulation and his new leadership role in the government bailout.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On April 18, 2010, in an interview on ABC's This Week program, Clinton said Summers was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate derivatives.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

President of Harvard

In 2001, when George W. Bush became President, Summers left the Treasury Department and returned to Harvard as its 27th president, serving from July 2001 until June 2006.<ref name=":0" /> He was Harvard's first Jewish president,<ref>YUNews Director of the National Economic Council, Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, is Keynote Speaker at Yeshiva University's Annual Hanukkah Dinner and Convocation on December 13, November 18, 2009</ref><ref>The Harvard Crimson Did Summers' Faith Affect His Fall?, March 3, 2006</ref><ref>The Harvard Crimson A Milestone of Faith, October 14, 2001</ref> though his predecessor Neil Rudenstine's father was Jewish.<ref>Harvard's First Jewish President. The Harvard Crimson. March 8, 2006</ref>

A number of Summers's decisions at Harvard have attracted public controversy, either at the time or since his resignation.

Cornel West affair

In an October 2001 meeting, Summers criticized African American Studies department head Cornel West for allegedly missing three weeks of classes to work on the Bill Bradley presidential campaign and complained that West was contributing to grade inflation. Summers also claimed that West's "rap" album was an "embarrassment" to the university. West pushed back strongly against the accusations.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> "The hip-hop scared him. It's a stereotypical reaction", he said later. West, who later called Summers both "uninformed" and "an unprincipled power player" in describing this encounter in his book Democracy Matters (2004), subsequently returned to Princeton University, where he had taught prior to Harvard University.

Differences between the sexes

In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Summers sparked controversy with his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented "in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions". The conference was designed to be off-the-record so that participants could speak candidly without fear of public misunderstanding or disclosure later.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Summers had prefaced his talk, saying he was adopting an "entirely positive, rather than normative approach" and that his remarks were intended to be an "attempt at provocation".<ref name="harvard2005">Template:Cite web. January 14, 2005.</ref>

Summers then began by identifying three hypotheses for the higher proportion of men in high-end science and engineering positions:

1. The high-powered job hypothesis
2. Different availability of aptitude at the high end
3. Different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search<ref name="harvard2005"/>

The second hypothesis, the generally greater variability among men (compared to women) in tests of cognitive abilities,<ref>Hedges, L.V., & Nowell, A. (1995). "Sex differences in mental scores, variability, and numbers of high scoring individuals". Science, 269, 41–45.</ref><ref>Lehrke, R. (1997). Sex linkage of intelligence: The X-Factor. New York: Praeger.</ref><ref>Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C.M. (2006). "Study of mathematically precocious youth after 35 years". Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 316–345.</ref> leading to proportionally more males than females at both the lower and upper tails of the test score distributions, caused the most controversy. In his discussion of this hypothesis, Summers said that "even small differences in the standard deviation [between genders] will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out [from the mean]".<ref name="harvard2005" /> Summers referenced research that implied differences between the standard deviations of males and females in the top 5% of twelfth graders under various tests. He then went on to argue that, if this research were to be accepted, then "whatever the set of attributes ... that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley ... are probably different in their standard deviations as well".<ref name="harvard2005"/>

Summers then concluded his discussion of the three hypotheses by saying:

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.<ref name="harvard2005"/>

Summers then went on to discuss approaches to remedying the shortage of women in high-end science and engineering positions.

This lunch-time talk drew accusations of sexism and careless scholarship, and an intense negative response followed, both nationally and at Harvard.<ref name="Globe20050117">Summers' Remarks on Women Draw Fire Template:Webarchive. The Boston Globe. January 17, 2005</ref> Summers apologized repeatedly.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Nevertheless, the controversy is speculated to have contributed to his resigning his position as president of Harvard University the following year, as well as costing Summers the job of Treasury Secretary in Obama's administration.<ref>Summers's 'sexism' costs him top Treasury job. The Independent. November 24, 2008</ref>

Summers's protégée Sheryl Sandberg has defended him, saying that "Larry has been a true advocate for women throughout his career" at the World Bank and Treasury. Referring to the lunch talk, Sandberg said, "What few seem to note is that it is remarkable that he was giving the speech in the first place – that he cared enough about women's careers and their trajectory in the fields of math and science to proactively analyze the issues and talk about what was going wrong".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2016, remarking upon political correctness in institutions of higher education, Summers said:

There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I'm somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that's unjust in American society that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Summers' opposition and support at Harvard

On March 15, 2005, members of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students in Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and undergraduates in Harvard College, passed 218–185 a motion of "lack of confidence" in the leadership of Summers, with 18 abstentions. A second motion that offered a milder censure of the president passed 253 to 137, also with 18 abstentions.

The members of the Harvard Corporation, the university's highest governing body, are in charge of the selection of the president and issued statements strongly supporting Summers.

FAS faculty were not unanimous in their comments against Summers. Psychologist Steven Pinker defended the legitimacy of Summers's January lecture. When asked if Summers's talk was "within the pale of legitimate academic discourse," Pinker responded "Good grief, shouldn't everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some degree of rigor? That's the difference between a university and a madrassa. There is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken seriously."<ref>Psychoanalysis Q-and-A: Steven Pinker. The Harvard Crimson. January 19, 2005</ref>

Summers had stronger support among Harvard College students than among the college faculty. One poll by The Harvard Crimson indicated that students opposed his resignation by a three-to-one margin, with 57% of responding students opposing his resignation and 19% supporting it.<ref>Poll: Students Say Summers Should Stay. The Harvard Crimson. February 20, 2006</ref>

In July 2005, a board member of Harvard Corporation, Conrad K. Harper, resigned saying he was angered both by the university president's comments about women and by Summers being given a salary increase. The resignation letter to the president said, "I could not and cannot support a raise in your salary, ... I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Board Member's Letter of Resignation. The New York Times. August 2, 2005</ref>

Support of economist Andrei Shleifer

Harvard and Andrei Shleifer, a close friend and protégé of Summers, controversially paid $28.5 million to settle a lawsuit by the U.S. government over the conflict of interest Shleifer had while advising Russia's privatization program. The US government had sued Shleifer under the False Claims Act, as he bought Russian stocks while designing the country's privatization. In 2004, a federal judge ruled that while Harvard had violated the contract, Shleifer and his associate alone were liable for treble damages.

In June 2005, Harvard and Shleifer announced that they had reached a tentative settlement with the US government. In August, Harvard, Shleifer, and the Department of Justice reached an agreement under which the university paid $26.5 million to settle the five-year-old lawsuit. Shleifer was also responsible for paying $2 million worth of damages.

Because Harvard paid almost all of the damages and allowed Shleifer to retain his faculty position, the settlement provoked allegations of favoritism by Summers. His continued support for Shleifer strengthened Summers's unpopularity with other professors, as reported in The Harvard Crimson:

In Russia

Template:See also An 18,000-word article "How Harvard Lost Russia" in Institutional Investor by David McClintick detailed Shleifer's alleged efforts to use his inside knowledge of and sway over the Russian economy in order to make lucrative personal investments, all while leading a Harvard group, advising the Russian government, that was under contract with the U.S. The article suggests that Summers shielded his fellow economist from disciplinary action by the university, and it noted that Summers had forewarned Shleifer and his wife Nancy Zimmerman about the conflict-of-interest regulations back in 1996.<ref name="crimson" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Summers's friendship with Shleifer was well known by the corporation when it selected him to succeed Rudenstine and Summers recused himself from all proceedings with Shleifer, whose case was actually handled by an independent committee led by former Harvard president Derek Bok.

Connection to Jeffrey Epstein and fallout

An article in The Harvard Crimson in 2003, during Summers's tenure as president, detailed a reportedly "special connection" between Summers and Jeffrey Epstein.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> Epstein pledged to donate at least $25 million to Harvard during Summers's tenure to endow Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein was given an office at Harvard for his personal use.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Epstein otherwise had no formal connection to Harvard.<ref name=":1" /> Summers's ties to Epstein reportedly began "a number of years...before Summers became Harvard's president and even before he was the Secretary of the Treasury."<ref name=":1" /> Flight records introduced as evidence in the 2021 trial of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell show that Summers flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane on at least four occasions, including once in 1998 when Summers was United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and at least three times while Harvard president.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A charity funded by Epstein also donated to the production of a PBS show hosted by Summers's wife and Harvard professor Elisa New.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2014, Summers emailed Epstein requesting "small scale philanthropy advice" for his wife's nonprofit, Verse Video Education.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Documents released by Congress on November 12, 2025, revealed frequent email communication between the two in 2017, 2018, and 2019.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> From November 2018 to July 5, 2019, a day before Epstein's arrest, Summers sought advice from him on how to pursue a sexual relationship with a woman he described as a mentee.<ref name="a758">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="y355">Template:Cite web</ref> In a 2017 email he implied to Epstein that women on average had lower IQ than men.<ref name="a758"/><ref name="y355"/> Summers issued a statement that his association with Epstein was "a major error of judgement".<ref name="a758" /> On November 14, 2025, President Trump directed the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Epstein's relationship with, among others, Summers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> However, some, including U.S. House of Representatives member Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), noted that this and the other new Department of Justice investigations against Epstein may have been intended to distract the U.S. Department of Justice and prevent release of the Epstein Files at an earlier date.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On November 17, 2025, Summers agreed to step back from his public commitments such as his role in the advisory group of The Yale Budget Lab, his role in the advisory group of The Hamilton Project (an economics policy arm of the Brookings Institution), his fellowship with the Center for American Progress, and his role as chair of the Center for Global Development.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On November 18, 2025, Summers would also end his role as a paid contributor to Bloomberg News.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On November 19, Summers resigned from the OpenAI board following the release of the Epstein emails.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Summers had also been on the advisory board of SandboxAQ<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> since August 2024; Template:As of, he was no longer listed as an advisor.

Winklevoss twins and Facebook

In February 2004, the Winklevoss twins requested a meeting with Summers in order to ask him to intervene on their behalf in an ongoing dispute they had with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The Winklevosses believed that Zuckerberg had stolen their idea for a social networking website and launched Facebook on his own, after they had asked him to be a part of their project, then called HarvardConnection. Summers believed that the matter was outside the university's jurisdiction and advised the twins to take their complaint to the courts.<ref name="harvardgradsfaceoff">Template:Cite news</ref>

Resignation as Harvard President

On February 21, 2006, Summers announced his intention to step down at the end of the school year effective June 30, 2006. Harvard agreed to provide Summers on his resignation with a one-year paid sabbatical leave, subsidized a $1 million outstanding loan from the university for his personal residence, and provided other payments.<ref>President and Fellows of Harvard College, IRS Form 990, 2006 & 2007.</ref> Former University President Derek Bok acted as Interim President while the university conducted a search for a replacement which ended with the naming of Drew Gilpin Faust on February 11, 2007.

Post-Harvard presidency career

President Barack Obama, on left, discusses with a group in the White House, including Larry Summers on far right (back to camera).

After a one-year sabbatical, Summers subsequently accepted Harvard University's invitation to serve as the Charles W. Eliot University Professor, one of 20 select University-wide professorships, with offices in the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2006 he was also a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons which reviewed the work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. He is a member in the Group of Thirty. He also currently serves on the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council and was part of a 2015 Berggruen-organized meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>"Why Nicolas Berggruen is Creating an Institute for Geniuses", Town and Country, May 11, 2016. "Another wing of the Berggruen Institute has technologists like Elon Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, as well as former treasury secretary Larry Summers."</ref>

Business interests

On October 19, 2006, Summers was hired as a part-time managing director of the New York-based hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co. for which he received $5 million in salary and other compensation over a 16-month period.<ref name="Bloomberg-2011-06-29">Template:Cite news</ref> At the same time Summers earned $2.7 million in speaking fees from major financial institutions,<ref name="Bloomberg"/> including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.<ref name="Salon">Template:Cite news</ref> Upon being nominated Treasury Secretary by President Clinton in 1999, Summers listed assets of about $900,000 and debts, including a mortgage, of $500,000.<ref name="Bloomberg"/> By the time he returned in 2009 to serve in the Obama administration, he reported a net worth between $17 million and $39 million.<ref name="Bloomberg"/> He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2013, Summers became an early angel investor in India's first car rental company, Zoomcar, which was started by his former Harvard Teaching Fellow.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

National Economic Council

Upon the inauguration of Barack Obama as president in January 2009, Summers was appointed to the post of director of the National Economic Council.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In this position Summers emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration, where he attracted both praise and criticism. There had been friction between Summers and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, as Volcker accused Summers of delaying the effort to organize a panel of outside economic advisers, and Summers had cut Volcker out of White House meetings and had not shown interest in collaborating on policy solutions to the economic crisis.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the other hand, Obama himself was reportedly thrilled with the work Summers did in his first few weeks on the job. And Peter Orszag, another top economic advisor, called Summers "one of the world's most brilliant economists."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to Henry Kissinger Larry Summers should "be given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 2009, as the Obama Administration tried to pass an economic stimulus spending bill, Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR.) criticized Summers, saying that he thought that President Barack Obama is "ill-advised by Larry Summers. Larry Summers hates infrastructure."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> DeFazio, along with liberal economists including Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, had argued that more of the stimulus should be spent on infrastructure,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while Summers had supported tax cuts.<ref>"Sean Grady: Shootout at Jackson Hole: The World's Central Bankers Take Aim at Deflation." The Independent. August 14, 2010.</ref> In late 2008, Summers and economic advisors for then-President-elect Obama presented a memo with options for an economic stimulus package ranging from $550 billion to $900 billion.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> According to The New Republic, economic advisor Christina Romer initially recommended a $1.8-trillion package, which proposal Summers quickly rejected, believing any stimulus approaching $1 trillion would not pass through Congress. Romer revised her recommendation to $1.2 trillion, which Summers agreed to include in the memo, but Summers struck the figure at the last minute.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

According to the Wall Street Journal, Summers called Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) asking him to remove caps on executive pay at firms that have received stimulus money, including Citigroup.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On April 3, 2009, Summers came under renewed criticism after it was disclosed that he was paid millions of dollars the previous year by companies which he now had influence over as a public servant. He earned $5 million from the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Post-NEC career

Summers with Volodymyr Groysman in Ukraine

Since leaving the NEC in December 2010, Summers has worked as an advisor to hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co, Citigroup and the NASDAQ OMX Group while resuming his role as a tenured Harvard professor.<ref name="Bloomberg">Template:Cite web</ref> In June 2011 Summers joined the board of directors of Square, a company developing an electronic payment service,<ref>TechCrunch (2011). Square Adds Former U.S. Secretary Of The Treasury Larry Summers To Board. Retrieved June 24, 2011.</ref> and became a special adviser at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.<ref>Dealbook (2011). Larry Summers Joins Andreessen Horowitz. Retrieved June 30, 2011.</ref> He joined the board of person-to-person lending company Lending Club in December 2012.<ref>TechCrunch (2012). With An IPO On Its Radar, Lending Club Adds Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers To Its Heavyweight Board. Retrieved December 12, 2012.</ref> In July 2015 Summers joined the Board of Directors of Premise Data, a San Francisco-based data and analytics technology company that sources data from a global network of on-the-ground contributors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 2016, he was one of eight former Treasury secretaries who called on the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union ahead of the June 2016 Referendum.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Summers referred to the United Kingdom's Brexit vote on June 23, 2016, in favor of leaving the European Union as the "worst self-inflicted policy wound that a country has done since the Second World War". However, Summers cautioned that the result was a "wake up call for elites everywhere" and called for "responsible nationalism" in response to simmering public sentiment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In June 2016, Summers also wrote, "I believe the risks to the US and global economies of Mr Trump's election as president are far greater [than passage of Brexit]. If he is elected, I would expect a protracted recession to begin within 18 months. The damage would be felt far beyond the United States."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

2020 presidential election

A coalition of progressive groups called on Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign no longer to use Summers as an advisor, after reports surfaced that Summers was advising the campaign on economic policy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Progressive groups like the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats petitioned the campaign to disavow Summers, saying, "Summers's legacy is advocating for policies that contributed to the skyrocketing inequality and climate crisis we're living with today."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Following the outcry, Summers stated he would not be joining a future Biden administration, in the event that Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Candidacy for chairmanship of the Federal Reserve and governorship of the Bank of Israel

In 2013, Summers emerged as one of two leading candidates, along with Janet Yellen, to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve. The possibility of his nomination created a great deal of controversy with some senators of both parties declaring opposition. On September 15, Summers withdrew his name from consideration for the position, writing: "I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation's ongoing economic recovery."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

During 2013, Summers had been reported as preferred candidate by the Cabinet of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to succeed Stanley Fischer as governor of the Bank of Israel. Netanyahu personally asked him to take the post, an offer he turned down.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Criticism of the Biden Administration, 2021

Summers emerged as an early opponent of President Joe Biden's economic policy, calling the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 "the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last 40 years" and arguing that it risked economic recession and market destabilization.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Israel

In October 2023, following the October 7 attacks and Israel's subsequent response, several Harvard undergraduate student groups signed a letter condemning Israel, holding it "entirely responsible for all unfolding violence".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The letter led to a backlash from several prominent Harvard alumni, including Summers, who said that he was "sickened" by it.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Summers, though agreeing with Bill Ackman on the need to examine the political views of employees, called Ackman's request to release the names of all the students involved in signing the letter "the stuff of Joe McCarthy".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Summers has criticized the Harvard administration for its failure to curb what he sees as rising antisemitism at the university since the Hamas attack. In March 2025, he expressed concern that the Harvard Corporation, the university's highest governing body, was inadequately addressing antisemitism on campus; specifically, Summers criticized current Harvard President Alan Garber for failing to issue a final report with recommendations despite Garber having convened a task force on combating antisemitism over a year earlier, in January 2024.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Summers was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma around 1983, underwent treatment and has remained cancer-free.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Summers has three children (older twin daughters Ruth and Pamela and son Harry) with his first wife, Victoria Joanne (Perry).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In December 2005, Summers married English professor Elisa New, who has three daughters (Yael, Orli and Maya) from a previous marriage. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In popular culture

The 2010 film The Social Network, which deals with the founding of the social networking site Facebook, shows Summers (played by Douglas Urbanski), in his then-capacity as President of Harvard, meeting with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to discuss their accusations against Mark Zuckerberg.

In the 2010 documentary Inside Job, Summers is presented as one of the key figures behind the 2008 financial crisis. Charles Ferguson points out the economist's role in what he characterizes as the deregulation of many domains of the financial sector.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Economic policy of the Barack Obama administration
• List of Harvard University politicians
• List of Jewish United States Cabinet members

External links

• Faculty page at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
• Lawrence Summers Template:Webarchive at Big Think
• Template:Econlib
• Template:C-SPAN
• Template:Charlie Rose view
• Template:New York Times topic

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