Billionaire retail magnate Leslie H. Wexner gave Harvard more than $142 million over nearly four decades — far more than publicly known — before his relationship with the University devolved into a bitter private rupture, internal records show.

The records, obtained by The Crimson and Pablo Torre Finds Out, reveal a relationship both broader and more acrimonious than the public account. Wexner’s giving reached far beyond the Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard continued to credit him with fellowship contributions through September 2024, nearly a year after his foundation announced that it was ending its financial relationship with the University.

The figure most often attached publicly to Wexner’s Harvard philanthropy was more than $42 million — the amount Harvard said he and his wife had committed to the Kennedy School by 2012. His name sits atop one of the school’s main buildings, and he also helped fund Harvard Hillel’s $3.6 million building in 1994.

But Harvard’s internal giving database lists $142,426,095 in gifts from Wexner between December 1989 and September 2024.

More than $30 million went to the Harvard College Fund, which supports unrestricted undergraduate spending. The records also show contributions to the Graduate School of Design and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

At HKS, the database records a $35 million pledge for the “Leslie and Abigail Wexner Family Building,” paid in five $7 million installements over almost exactly four years. It also records a roughly $15 million pledge to the “Wexner Family Winter Garden Fund.”

Harvard’s database also credited Wexner with about $1.5 million for the Wexner Israel Fellowship between December 2023 to September 2024 — after the Wexner Foundation announced in October 2023 that it was ending its 34-year partnership with the University. (The payments appear to have fulfilled commitments made before the foundation cut ties, rather than reflecting new gifts pledged afterward.)

The foundation said it was cutting ties over Harvard’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and a student group statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence. In a publicly released letter to the Board of Overseers, the foundation called then-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s “tiptoeing, equivocating” response a “dismal failure.”

One week later, Wexner sent Gay and the Board of Overseers a terse, two-sentence handwritten note, a scanned copy of which was stored in Harvard’s internal fundraising database.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality,” Wexner wrote, invoking a line commonly attributed to Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

“Please do not respond — the bell cannot be unrung… just think and learn,” he added.

A spokesperson for Wexner declined to comment. A Harvard spokesperson also declined to discuss Wexner’s donations, citing a policy against commenting on gifts from individual donors.

Wexner’s relationship with Harvard came under renewed scrutiny this spring over his professional and personal ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.

Epstein served as Wexner’s financial adviser, and Wexner was one of his few publicly known clients until 2007. Wexner has said Epstein stole millions of dollars from him, and his lawyers told the Department of Justice in July 2019 that Epstein paid Wexner $100 million in 2008.

But records released this winter showed that Wexner’s name appeared on a 2019 list of “co-conspirators” compiled by the FBI. Wexner has not been charged with a crime related to Epstein and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

The disclosures prompted a group of students and faculty of the Kennedy School to call for the removal of Wexner’s name from buildings on the school’s campus in March. Harvard rejected the request last month at the first stage of its denaming process, determining that unspecified “legal obligations” prevented the name’s removal. Wexner said afterward that he was “appreciative” his name would remain on the building and that his only wrongdoing was “being stupid.”

The petitioners said Harvard provided no further explanation. Lauren Barnes, one of the students behind the proposal, said the decision was conveyed in a four-sentence email from the Office of the President shortly before Weinstein’s wider announcement.

Barnes and other petitioners criticized the lack of transparency, saying the decision left them with unanswered questions about whether Harvard’s denaming policy could meaningfully be used against a major donor.

Their frustration has largely centered on the University rather than the Kennedy School. HKS Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein wrote in June that HKS would pursue ways to contextualize Wexner’s relationship with Epstein, including initiatives addressing sexual harm and gender inequality.

Earlier this month, the Kennedy School’s Office of Belonging, Community, and Connection hosted a private listening session for affiliates to discuss the decision and possible next steps.

But Harvard has still not identified the legal obligations it says prevent the denaming. Wexner himself said last month that he had “no idea” what obligations the University was referring to.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.