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Ex-Treasury chief Larry Summers is exiting the board at the ChatGPT creator, just several days after a collection of digital correspondence between him and late convicted sex offender the accused trafficker became public.

Summers commented in a statement that he was "thankful for the privilege to have participated, enthusiastic about the promise of the company, and look forward observing their development".

The prominent academic, who previously presided over the Ivy League institution, stated on earlier this week that he would be scaling back from public roles due to his association with the convicted sex offender.

Email Communications

The newly public messages showed that the official corresponded with Epstein until the 24 hours preceding Epstein's 2019 detention for accused human trafficking of minors.

In another announcement, the AI firm said it understood Summers' determination to depart.

"We appreciate his numerous inputs and the viewpoint he brought to the directors," OpenAI commented.

Congressional Action

This development follows after the two houses of the US legislature decided on recently to endorse a measure that would require the Department of Justice to make public its records on the case.

The measure will afterward proceed to the office of President Trump for endorsement. Trump has stated he plans to endorse the measure, after modifying his position on the issue following pushback from his followers.

Message Details

A group of Epstein-related messages released by the House Oversight Committee days ago included numerous high-profile figures in the Epstein's past associates, without indicating any illegal behavior by those people.

The messages indicated that the professor and the financier regularly had dinners together, with he often trying to link the official to prominent international personalities.

Personal Response

After the correspondence were released with the wider community, the former official said he accepted "complete accountability for my poor decision to persist in communicating with the financier".

He further stated that he wanted "to rebuild confidence and mend connections with the people nearest to me".

Career Background

Summers occupied senior posts under Democratic administrations; acting as economic leader under the former president, and as director of the White House economic team under Barack Obama.

He headed the institution from 2001 to 2006 and remains a academic there. When declaring his departure from public roles previously on Monday, he stated he would maintain his academic responsibilities.

Additional Consequences

Following Summers' declaration on Monday, the policy organization, a liberal think tank in the capital where the professor was a senior fellow, confirmed that he was ceased to be affiliated with the institution.

Summers entered the directorate of the technology firm, which makes ChatGPT, in 2023 - following a failed attempt to replace its chief executive Sam Altman.