Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an Americaneconomist. He served as the 71stUnited States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001, as the 27thpresident of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, and as the eighth director of theNational Economic Council from 2009 to 2010.[1][2] Currently atHarvard Kennedy School, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor. He is on leave from his teaching responsibilities and from his role as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government as of November 19, 2025.[1][3][4]
Summers became a professor of economics at Harvard University in 1983. He left Harvard in 1991, working as theChief Economist of the World Bank from 1991 to 1993.[5][6][1] In 1993, Summers was appointedUnder Secretary for International Affairs of theUnited States Department of the Treasury under PresidentBill Clinton's administration. In 1995, he was promoted toDeputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentorRobert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin asSecretary of the Treasury.[6][1][7] While working for the Clinton administration, Summers played a leading role in the American response to the1994 economic crisis in Mexico, the1997 Asian financial crisis, and the1998 Russian financial crisis. He was also influential in theHarvard Institute for International Development and American-advised privatization of the economies of thepost-Soviet states, and in the deregulation of the U.S. financial system, including the repeal of theGlass-Steagall Act.
Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27thpresident of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of ano-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part from Summers's conflict withCornel West, financialconflict of interest questions regarding his relationship withAndrei 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.[8]
After his departure from Harvard, Summers worked as a managing partner at the hedge fundD. E. Shaw & Co. Summers rejoined public service during theObama administration, serving as the Director of the White HouseUnited States National Economic Council for PresidentBarack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration's response to theGreat Recession.[6][1] In November 2023, Summers joined the board of directors ofartificial intelligence organizationOpenAI, before resigning in November 2025 after revelations about his ties to child sex offenderJeffrey Epstein.[9][10]
Summers was born inNew Haven, Connecticut, on November 30, 1954, into aJewish family. He was the son of two economists,Robert Summers (who changed the family surname from Samuelson) andAnita Summers (ofRomanian-Jewish ancestry), who were both professors at theUniversity of Pennsylvania. He is also the nephew of twoNobel laureates in economics:Paul Samuelson (brother of Robert Summers) andKenneth Arrow (brother of Anita Arrow Summers). He spent most of his childhood inPenn Valley,Pennsylvania, a suburb ofPhiladelphia, where he attendedHarriton High School.
At age 16,[11] he entered theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he originally intended to studyphysics but soon switched toeconomics, graduating in 1975. He was also an active member of the MIT debating team and qualified for participation in the annualNational Debate Tournament three times. He attendedHarvard University as a graduate student, receiving hisPh.D. in 1982.[12] In 1983, at age 28, Summers became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. He was a visiting academic at theLondon School of Economics in 1987.[13]
As a researcher, Summers has made important contributions in many areas of economics, primarilypublic finance,labor economics,financial economics, andmacroeconomics. Summers has also worked in international economics, economic demography,economic history anddevelopment economics.[14] He received theJohn Bates Clark Medal in 1993 from the American Economic Association.[15] In 1987, he was the first social scientist to win theAlan T. Waterman Award from theNational Science Foundation. Summers is also a member of theNational 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.[16]
Summers was on the staff of theCouncil of Economic Advisers under President Reagan in 1982–1983. He also served as an economic adviser to theDukakis Presidential campaign in 1988.
Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as the Vice President of Development Economics andChief Economist for theWorld Bank until 1993.[5][6][1]
According to the World Bank's Data & Research office, Summers returned toWashington, 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.[5] The World Bank's official site also reports that Summers' research included an "influential" report that demonstrated a very high return from investments in educating girls in developing nations.[5]
According toThe Economist, Summers was "often at the centre of heated debates" about economic policy, as he was considered a "famous contrarian".[17]
In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signeda 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.[18] 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.[18] ... I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."[19] According to Pritchett, the memo, as leaked, was doctored to remove context and intended irony.[20][18]
In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs and later in theUnited States Department of the Treasury under theClinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentorRobert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin asSecretary 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.[21] Summers set up a project through which theHarvard 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.[22]Summers encouraged then-Russian leaderBoris Yeltsin to use the same "three-'ations'" of policy he advocated in the Clinton Administration – "privatization, stabilization, and liberalization".[23]
Summers pressured the Korean government to raise its interest rates and balance its budget in the midst of a recession, policies criticized byPaul Krugman andJoseph Stiglitz.[24] According to the bookThe Chastening, by Paul Blustein, during this crisis, Summers, along withPaul Wolfowitz, pushed for regime change in Indonesia.[25]
Summers was a leading voice within the Clinton Administration arguing against American leadership ingreenhouse gas reductions and against US participation in theKyoto Protocol, according to internal documents made public in 2009.[26]
As Treasury Secretary, Summers led the Clinton Administration's opposition to tax cuts proposed by the Republican Congress in 1999.[27]
During the Californiaenergy crisis of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed withAlan Greenspan andEnron executiveKenneth Lay to lecture California GovernorGray Davis on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation.[28] Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California's environmental standards in order to reassure the markets.[29]
Summers hailed theGramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offeringcommercial banking, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933Glass–Steagall Act): "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since theGreat Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," Summers said.[30] "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."[30] Many critics, includingPresidentBarack Obama, have suggested thesubprime mortgage crisis was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act.[31] As a member of President Clinton'sWorking Group on Financial Markets, Summers, along with U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ChairmanArthur 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.[32]
On May 7, 1998, theCommodity 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."[33] 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."[34] 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."[35]
WhenGeorge Stephanopoulos asked Summers about the2008 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."[36]
In February 2009, Summers quotedJohn Maynard Keynes, saying "When circumstances change, I change my opinion", reflecting both on the failures ofWall Street deregulation and his new leadership role in the government bailout.[37] On April 18, 2010, in an interview on ABC'sThis Week program, Clinton said Summers was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate derivatives.[38]
In 2001, whenGeorge W. Bush becamePresident, Summers left the Treasury Department and returned to Harvard as its 27th president, serving from July 2001 until June 2006.[15] He was Harvard's first Jewish president,[39][40][41] though his predecessor Neil Rudenstine's father was Jewish.[42]
A number of Summers's decisions at Harvard have attracted public controversy, either at the time or since his resignation.
In an October 2001 meeting, Summers criticized African American Studies department headCornel West for allegedly missing three weeks of classes to work on theBill Bradley presidential campaign and complained that West was contributing tograde inflation. Summers also claimed that West's "rap" album was an "embarrassment" to the university. West pushed back strongly against the accusations.[43] "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 bookDemocracy Matters (2004), subsequently returned toPrinceton University, where he had taught prior toHarvard University.
In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by theNational 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.[44]
Summers had prefaced his talk, saying he was adopting an "entirelypositive, rather thannormative approach" and that his remarks were intended to be an "attempt at provocation".[45]
Summers then began by identifying three hypotheses for the higher proportion of men in high-end science and engineering positions:
The second hypothesis, the generallygreater variability among men (compared to women) in tests of cognitive abilities,[46][47][48] 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]".[45] 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".[45]
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.[45]
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.[49] Summers apologized repeatedly.[50] 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 ofTreasury Secretary inObama's administration.[51]
Summers's protégéeSheryl 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".[52]
In 2016, remarking uponpolitical 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.[53]
On March 15, 2005, members of theHarvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students inHarvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and undergraduates inHarvard 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 theHarvard 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. PsychologistSteven 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 amadrassa. There is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken seriously."[54]
Summers had stronger support among Harvard College students than among the college faculty. One poll byThe 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.[55]
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."[56][57]
Harvard andAndrei Shleifer, a close friend and protégé of Summers, controversially paid $28.5 million to settle alawsuit by the U.S. government over theconflict of interest Shleifer had while advisingRussia's privatization program. The US government had sued Shleifer under theFalse Claims Act, as he boughtRussian stocks while designing the country'sprivatization. In 2004, a federal judge ruled that while Harvard had violated the contract, Shleifer and his associate alone were liable fortreble damages.
In June 2005, Harvard and Shleifer announced that they had reached a tentative settlement with the US government. In August, Harvard, Shleifer, and theDepartment 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 weakened Summers's popularity with other professors, as reported inThe Harvard Crimson:
I've been a member of this Faculty for over 45 years, and I am no longer easily shocked," is how Frederick H. Abernathy, the McKay professor of mechanical engineering, began his biting comments about the Shleifer case at Tuesday's fiery Faculty meeting. But, Abernathy continued, "I was deeply shocked and disappointed by the actions of this University" in the Shleifer affair.[58]
An 18,000-word article "How Harvard Lost Russia" inInstitutional Investor by David McClintick detailed Shleifer's alleged efforts to use hisinside 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.[58][59] 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 presidentDerek Bok.
An article inThe Harvard Crimson in 2003, during Summers's tenure as president, detailed a reportedly "special connection" between Summers andJeffrey Epstein.[60] 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.[61][62] Epstein otherwise had no formal connection to Harvard.[60] 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."[60] Flight records introduced as evidence in the 2021 trial of Epstein associateGhislaine Maxwell show that Summers flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane on at least four occasions, including once in 1998 when Summers wasUnited States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and at least three times while Harvard president.[63] A charity funded by Epstein also donated to the production of aPBS show hosted by Summers's wife and Harvard professorElisa New.[64] In 2014, Summers emailed Epstein requesting "small scale philanthropy advice" for his wife's nonprofit, Verse Video Education.[65][66]
Documents released by Congress on November 12, 2025, revealed frequent email communication between the two in 2017, 2018, and 2019.[67] 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.[68][69] In a 2017 email he implied to Epstein that women on average had lower IQ than men.[68][69] Summers issued a statement that his association with Epstein was "a major error of judgement".[68] On November 14, 2025, President Trump directed theU.S. Department of Justice to investigate Epstein's relationship with, among others, Summers.[70] However, some, including U.S. House of Representatives memberThomas 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 theEpstein Files at an earlier date.[71] 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 ofThe Hamilton Project (an economics policy arm of theBrookings Institution), hisfellowship with theCenter for American Progress, and his role as chair of theCenter for Global Development.[72] On November 18, 2025, Summers would also end his role as a paid contributor toBloomberg News.[73]
On November 19, Summers resigned from theOpenAI board following the release of the Epstein emails.[74] Summers had also been on the advisory board ofSandboxAQ[75] since August 2024; as of 19 November 2025[update], he was no longer listed as an advisor.
In February 2004, theWinklevoss twins requested a meeting with Summers in order to ask him to intervene on their behalf in an ongoing dispute they had withFacebook founderMark 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.[76]
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 paidsabbatical leave, subsidized a $1 million outstanding loan from the university for his personal residence, and provided other payments.[77] Former University PresidentDerek Bok acted as Interim President while the university conducted a search for a replacement which ended with the naming ofDrew Gilpin Faust on February 11, 2007.
After a one-year sabbatical, Summers subsequently accepted Harvard University's invitation to serve as theCharles W. Eliot University Professor, one of 20select University-wide professorships, with offices in the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School.[78] In 2006 he was also a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons which reviewed the work of theUnited Nations Conference on Trade and Development. He is a member in theGroup of Thirty. He also currently serves on theBerggruen Institute's 21st Century Council and was part of a 2015 Berggruen-organized meeting with Chinese presidentXi Jinping.[79][80]
On October 19, 2006, Summers was hired as a part-time managing director of the New York-based hedge fundD. E. Shaw & Co. for which he received $5 million in salary and other compensation over a 16-month period.[81] At the same time Summers earned $2.7 million in speaking fees from major financial institutions,[82] includingGoldman Sachs,JPMorgan Chase,Citigroup,Merrill Lynch andLehman Brothers.[83] 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.[82] By the time he returned in 2009 to serve in the Obama administration, he reported a net worth between $17 million and $39 million.[82] He is a former member of the Steering Committee of theBilderberg Group.[84] In 2013, Summers became an early angel investor in India's first car rental company,Zoomcar, which was started by his formerHarvard Teaching Fellow.[85]
Upon the inauguration ofBarack Obama as president in January 2009, Summers was appointed to the post of director of theNational Economic Council.[86] 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 ChairmanPaul 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.[87] On the other hand, Obama himself was reportedly thrilled with the work Summers did in his first few weeks on the job. AndPeter Orszag, another top economic advisor, called Summers "one of the world's most brilliant economists."[88] According toHenry Kissinger Larry Summers should "be given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas".[89]
In January 2009, as theObama Administration tried to pass an economic stimulus spending bill, RepresentativePeter DeFazio (D-OR.) criticized Summers, saying that he thought that PresidentBarack Obama is "ill-advised by Larry Summers. Larry Summers hates infrastructure."[90] DeFazio, along with liberal economists includingPaul Krugman andJoseph Stiglitz, had argued that more of the stimulus should be spent on infrastructure,[91] while Summers had supported tax cuts.[92] 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.[93] According toThe New Republic, economic advisorChristina 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.[94]
According tothe Wall Street Journal, Summers called SenatorChris Dodd (D-CT) asking him to remove caps on executive pay at firms that have received stimulus money, including Citigroup.[95]
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 apublic servant. He earned $5 million from thehedge fund D.E. Shaw and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees fromWall Street companies that received governmentbailout money.[96]
.jpg)
Since leaving the NEC in December 2010, Summers has worked as an advisor to hedge fundD. E. Shaw & Co, Citigroup and theNASDAQ OMX Group while resuming his role as a tenured Harvard professor.[82] In June 2011 Summers joined the board of directors ofSquare, a company developing an electronic payment service,[97] and became a special adviser at venture capital firmAndreessen Horowitz.[98] He joined the board of person-to-person lending companyLending Club in December 2012.[99] In July 2015 Summers joined the Board of Directors ofPremise Data, a San Francisco-based data and analytics technology company that sources data from a global network of on-the-ground contributors.[100][101]
In April 2016, he was one of eight former Treasury secretaries who called on theUnited Kingdom to remain a member of theEuropean Union ahead of theJune 2016 Referendum.[102]
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.[103]
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."[104]
A coalition of progressive groups called onJoe Biden's2020 presidential campaign no longer to use Summers as an advisor, after reports surfaced that Summers was advising the campaign on economic policy.[105] Progressive groups like theSunrise Movement andJustice 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."[106] Following the outcry, Summers stated he would not be joining a future Biden administration, in the event that Biden defeatedDonald Trump in the2020 presidential election.[107]
In 2013, Summers emerged as one of two leading candidates, along withJanet Yellen, to succeedBen Bernanke aschair 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."[108][109]
During 2013, Summers had been reported as preferred candidate by theCabinet of Israel and Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu to succeedStanley Fischer as governor of theBank of Israel. Netanyahu personally asked him to take the post, an offer he turned down.[110][111]
Summers emerged as an early opponent of PresidentJoe Biden's economic policy, calling the $1.9 trillionAmerican 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.[112]
In October 2023, following theOctober 7 attacks and Israel's subsequent response, severalHarvard undergraduate student groups signed a lettercondemning Israel, holding it "entirely responsible for all unfolding violence".[113][114] The letter led to a backlash from several prominent Harvard alumni, including Summers, who said that he was "sickened" by it.[115] Summers, though agreeing withBill 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 ofJoe McCarthy".[116]
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 PresidentAlan 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.[117]
Summers was diagnosed withHodgkin's lymphoma around 1983, underwent treatment and has remained cancer-free.[118] Summers has three children with his first wife, Victoria Joanne (Perry).[119][120]In December 2005, Summers married English professorElisa New atElmwood and spent his honeymoon onJeffrey Epstein's island.[121] He lives inBrookline, Massachusetts.[122]
The 2010 filmThe Social Network, which deals with the founding of the social networking siteFacebook, shows Summers (played byDouglas Urbanski), in his then-capacity as President of Harvard, meeting withCameron andTyler Winklevoss to discuss their accusations againstMark Zuckerberg.
In the 2010 documentaryInside Job, Summers is presented as one of the key figures behind the2008 financial crisis. Charles Ferguson points out the economist's role in what he characterizes as the deregulation of many domains of the financial sector.[123]
Epstein has pledged at least $25 million to Harvard to create the Epstein Program for Mathematical Biology and Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein will have an office at the university...He says he was reluctant to have his name attached to the program, but Summers persuaded him.
In 2016, Gratitude America Ltd. shelled out $110,000 to Verse Video Education. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nonprofit produces the PBS show Poetry in America, whose creator and host is Harvard professor Elisa New. Verse's 2016 tax return named New as the group's president but doesn't include specific donors for its $1.38 million in total contributions. New is married to Summers, Harvard University's former president, who hobnobbed with Epstein in elite international relations groups and, like Bill Clinton, flew on Epstein's private jet.
After months of contentious public debate, Larry Summers has withdrawn his name from consideration to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. President Obama said he spoke with Summers earlier Sunday and accepted his decision.
Facing growing opposition in Congress, Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and a top contender for Federal Reserve chairman, told President Obama that he didn't want to be considered for the job.
Not long after getting tenure at Harvard, he had a personal setback when he was diagnosed at 29 with Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer. After nearly a year of treatments he was cancer free and the disease has not returned.
Victoria Joanne Perry, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Perry of Ormond Beach, Fla., and Cape Rosier, Me., was married yesterday to Lawrence Henry Summers, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Summers of Merion Station, Pa. The ceremony was performed at the Harvard Club in Boston ...
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief Economist of the World Bank 1991–1993 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs 1993–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury 1995–1999 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of the Treasury 1999–2001 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Director of theNational Economic Council 2009–2011 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | President of Harvard University 2001–2006 | Succeeded by Derek Bok Acting |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former U.S. Cabinet Member | Order of precedence of the United States as Former U.S. Cabinet Member | Succeeded byas Former U.S. Cabinet Member |
