One-time economic leader the Harvard professor is departing from the directorate at OpenAI, just a week after a collection of digital correspondence between him and deceased financier the accused trafficker became widely known.
He commented in a statement that he was "appreciative for the privilege to have served, optimistic about the prospects of the organization, and eagerly await observing their progress".
Summers, who formerly led the prestigious university, announced on Monday that he would be scaling back from public roles due to his association with Jeffrey Epstein.
The recently released communications demonstrated that Summers communicated with Jeffrey Epstein until the 24 hours preceding his 2019 apprehension for suspected sex trafficking of minors.
In additional comments, the artificial intelligence company stated it respected his choice to resign.
"We appreciate his numerous inputs and the perspective he provided to the Board," the organization stated.
This announcement follows after the entire Congress of Congress voted on recently to pass a legislation that would require the federal prosecutors to make public its documents on Epstein.
The bill will afterward move to the office of US President Donald Trump for endorsement. He has stated he expects to sign the measure, after changing his view on the issue following pushback from his followers.
A batch of Epstein-related correspondence disclosed by the House Oversight Committee last week mentioned numerous high-profile figures in the financier's previous network, without indicating any illegal behavior by those figures.
The messages revealed that the economist and Jeffrey Epstein often met for meals, with he often attempting to connect Summers to influential global figures.
After the correspondence were shared with the general audience, the former official stated he accepted "total ownership for my poor choice to persist in interacting with Jeffrey Epstein".
He added that he wanted "to rebuild confidence and mend relationships with the people most important to me".
The professor held leadership roles under Democratic administrations; acting as treasury secretary under the former president, and as director of the economic advisory body under Barack Obama.
He presided over Harvard from five years and is still a academic there. When announcing his step-down from public commitments previously on this week, he stated he would persist with his teaching commitments.
Following his statement on earlier this week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research organization in Washington where the professor was a senior fellow, announced that the economist was not associated with the group.
Summers joined the directorate of the technology firm, which makes the AI chatbot, in 2023 - following a unsuccessful effort to oust its top executive OpenAI's head.
A seasoned software engineer with a passion for open-source projects and tech education.
