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Ex-Treasury chief the Harvard professor is exiting the board at the artificial intelligence firm, just several days after a series of electronic messages between him and late convicted sex offender the accused trafficker became public.

The economist commented in an announcement that he was "thankful for the opportunity to have contributed, enthusiastic about the potential of the organization, and look forward tracking their development".

The prominent academic, who formerly led the Ivy League institution, announced on Monday that he would be scaling back from public roles due to his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

Message Exchange

The recently released communications demonstrated that Summers exchanged messages with the financier until the day before Epstein's 2019 arrest for suspected human trafficking of minors.

In additional comments, the artificial intelligence company expressed it accepted the economist's choice to resign.

"We acknowledge his numerous inputs and the viewpoint he provided to the governing body," OpenAI stated.

Political Context

This news comes after both chambers of the legislative branch voted on this week to endorse a legislation that would require the federal prosecutors to release its files on Epstein.

The bill will subsequently head to the administration of President Trump for endorsement. He has stated he expects to approve the legislation, after reversing his stance on the subject following pushback from his followers.

Message Details

A batch of Epstein-connected messages disclosed by the legislative panel recently mentioned numerous high-profile figures in the financier's former circle, without implying any legal wrongdoing by those figures.

The communications showed that the economist and Epstein regularly had dinners together, with the billionaire often trying to connect the academic to notable world leaders.

Personal Accountability

After the correspondence were made available with the general audience, the former official expressed he accepted "total ownership for my misguided judgment to continue interacting with Mr Epstein".

He continued that he wanted "to reestablish confidence and fix connections with the persons most important to me".

Previous Positions

The professor held high-level positions under party leaders; serving as treasury secretary under the former president, and as leader of the National Economic Council under President Obama.

He presided over the university from five years and is still a professor there. When declaring his withdrawal from public commitments previously on Monday, he said he would continue his teaching commitments.

Additional Consequences

Following the economist's announcement on earlier this week, the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization in DC where the professor was a senior fellow, confirmed that the economist was no longer associated with the organization.

Summers became part of the leadership of OpenAI, which creates the language model, in last year - following a failed attempt to oust its top executive OpenAI's head.