Summers Named Successor Executor in 2014 Draft of Epstein’s Will

Updated December 23, 2025, at 12:56 a.m.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers was once designated as a successor executor in convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein’s will, positioning him to oversee Epstein’s estate if the primary executors were unable or unwilling to serve, according to a copy disclosed by the Department of Justice on Monday.

The will, which was signed in November 2014, was one of more than 6,000 files that appeared briefly on the Department of Justice’s website as part of an additional tranche of Epstein-related records, before being removed.

Summers’ designation placed him in line for significant authority over Epstein’s estate under the terms of the will, which granted executors broad discretion to manage, invest, and dispose of Epstein’s assets without judicial approval.

The will, which was archived by Drop Site News, names three of Epstein’s longtime associates — Darren K. Indyke, David Mitchell and James E. Staley — as executors. It specifies that Summers would assume the role if any of the three "fails to qualify or ceases to act,” according to the document.

Under the terms of the will, which has not been previously reported, each executor was entitled to $250,000 upon the estate’s completion of probate.

Court filings following Epstein’s death indicate that Summers, a former United States Treasury Secretary, was later removed from Epstein’s estate planning documents. In an updated 2019 copy of the will, Indyke served as an executor alongside Richard D. Kahn, another one of Epstein’s allies who does not appear in the 2014 version.

The Justice Department has not confirmed the circumstances under which the document was posted or removed, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Though Summers was ultimately taken off the will, his inclusion at one point is the latest indication of the extraordinarily close relationship the two men maintained until the financier’s 2019 arrest over new federal sex trafficking charges.

That relationship came into sharper focus in November after the House Oversight Committee released thousands of documents from Epstein’s estate. That correspondence — which extended for over a decade and ended one day before Epstein’s final arrest — showed Summers turning to Epstein for advice on his pursuit of a younger economist he described as a mentee.

But the Monday will shows that Summers and Epstein’s relationship, at times, extended beyond personal or professional correspondences, formally embedding him into Epstein’s estate affairs and planning.

Steven Goldberg, a spokesperson for Summers, wrote in a statement to The Crimson that Summers “had absolutely no knowledge that he was included in an early version of Epstein's will and had no involvement in his financial matters or the administration of his estate.”

Epstein’s vast wealth and the network of powerful figures with whom he corresponded have drawn intense scrutiny as of late.

On Friday, the DOJ made public thousands of files related to the Epstein case in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed into law in November. But the document dump did not substantially alter the public understanding of Epstein’s behavior, and in the days since, a chorus of lawmakers have criticized the DOJ for withholding files and redacting those that were made public.

Summers has disappeared from the public eye since his exchanges with Epstein were revealed. He dropped his teaching commitments amid a new Harvard investigation into his and others’ ties with the disgraced financier. He also stepped back or was removed from various public and academic engagements, including his posts at OpenAI and Bloomberg.

The three other men named in the 2014 will held tight personal or professional ties to Epstein. Indyke was the financier’s personal lawyer, Staley worked for Epstein as an executive at J.P. Morgan, and Mitchell has been previously reported as a close friend.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.