Emails have ended many careers. Will Larry Summers’ be one of them?

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I am Boston Globe financial columnist Larry Edelman . Today, Larry Summers towered over the realm of economics from lofty positions in Cambridge and Washington, D.C. What will his legacy be now that the extent of his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has come to light?

➕ Their dinner with Donald and MBS.

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🤦 Bad judgment

Larry Summers, one of the most influential American economists of the past 40 years, has weathered many controversies. His stature survived battles over Clinton-era financial deregulation, a tumultuous presidency at Harvard University, and, more recently, his public attacks on Harvard’s leadership for what he called an excessive focus on diversity.

But the revelation that Summers stayed in touch with Jeffrey Epstein long after the disgraced financier’s 2008 guilty plea for soliciting a minor — and right up to Epstein’s 2019 sex-trafficking arrest — poses the most serious threat yet to his career.

Documents released by Congress last week include emails in which Summers, who is married, asked Epstein for romantic advice about a younger economist he had mentored. They also discussed Epstein’s potential donations to “Poetry in America,” the TV series created by Summers’ wife, Elisa New, as well as politics and Harvard projects. Epstein died in custody in 2019.

Summers has not been accused of wrongdoing. But this week he said he would withdraw from public roles, immediately stop teaching at Harvard, and step back from positions at OpenAI, the Yale Budget Lab, and other organizations.

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions,” he said.

💥 Why it matters

Summers has had an outsize influence on economic debates, especially within the Democratic Party.

His early research reshaped thinking about unemployment, taxation, inequality, and long-run growth. In Washington, he helped manage the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s as deputy Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, and later appeared with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan on Time’s cover as “The Committee to Save the World.”

He also served as Clinton's Treasury secretary and, under President Barack Obama, as director of the National Economic Council during the Great Recession.

↔️ A polarizing figure

Summers’ record has long divided Democrats.

Admirers credited him with preventing a total financial collapse in 2008, while critics, especially on the left, argued the stimulus he supported was too small.

Back at Harvard, he pushed the university to modernize and expand access for low-income students but was dogged by the Andrei Shleifer conflict-of-interest scandal and his comments about women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science, which contributed to his 2006 resignation following a faculty no-confidence vote.

After returning to academia, Summers revived the concept of “secular stagnation” to explain the weak post-2008 recovery, arguing for larger public investment — a notable shift for the Democratic centrist. But progressives continued to fault his role in Clinton-era deregulation. He withdrew from consideration for Federal Reserve chair in 2013 amid left-wing opposition, including from Senator Elizabeth Warren.

He angered Democrats again in 2021 by warning that President Biden’s stimulus would spark inflation. When prices later rose, his influence in Washington and on Wall Street increased — and progressive frustration hardened.

🤔 Final thought

Summers turns 71 this month. He is likely to keep a low profile for now. But it would be unfortunate if his expertise were silenced for good.

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🍾 The Closer

The tech bros were there, including Elon Musk and Palantir’s Alex Karp. So were Wall Street masters of the universe Bill Ackman and Stephen Schwarzman. Even Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo attended.

But there weren’t many guests with deep Massachusetts ties at President Trump’s Tuesday dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (a.k.a. MBS) — a reminder of the state’s political leanings and its limited presence in the AI and crypto sectors that have clustered around the president.

Michael Dell, who Dell Technologies acquired Hopkinton-based EMC, attended. So did Jeremy Allaire, cofounder of Circle Internet Financial, which last year announced it was moving from Boston to New York. And two General Electric honchos were among the diners: Scott Strazik, CEO of Cambridge-based GE Vernova, and Larry Culp, who was Boston-based GE’s last CEO before he broke the company into pieces. Culp now runs GE Aerospace, which has a jet-engine plant in Lynn.

The full list of attendees is here. Let me know if you spot anyone else with Bay State connections.

📆 On this date in 1985, Microsoft released its first version of Windows, Windows 1.0.

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