Former President Barack Obama, 63, remains one of the most well-known people in the world since leaving office in 2017, and although he maintains a hands-off approach to intra-party disputes, he is also a fixture of national Democratic Party politics today. In the past eight years, he has pursued a variety of ventures with former First Lady Michelle Obama, including starting a film production company as well as managing the ongoing operations of the non-profit Obama Foundation that they started in 2014.
While he was paid well during his time in office by the standards of most Americans, the lion’s share of the former president’s family wealth is drawn from royalties and advances from books, speaker fees from public engagements, deals for the couple’s production company and real estate holdings.
How he made his fortune
21 years ago, Barack Obama, a Harvard Law graduate and University of Chicago law professor, was a little-known Illinois state senator when he was given the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston that nominated Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) for the presidency against incumbent George W. Bush. Obama’s speech was so well received that “observers from across the political world hailed the address as an instant classic,” a career-altering turn that “captured the nation’s attention and opened the way for a run at the presidency,” said Chicago Magazine. That speech also propelled sales of his first book, “Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” which had been published a month prior to the convention.
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Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate that same year, and on the strength of his star turn at the DNC was already a national figure. Obama had made millions from his two memoirs, including “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (2006) before he was elected president in 2008. He also wrote a children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing: Letters to My Daughters,” which was published in 2010. In 2007 alone, when he announced his 2008 bid for the White House, Obama “earned almost $3.3 million from Random House book royalties,” said AOL.
As a U.S. Senator from Illinois Obama started at a salary of $162,100 in 2006 and then earned $169,300 in his final year in the chamber in 2009 before collecting $400,000 per year during his eight years as the president. But it was ongoing sales of his books that sent the Obamas’ wealth on a steady upward trajectory during his presidency, with total royalties of $15.6 million between 2009 and 2017. Obama “donated all post-tax profits from the children’s book to provide scholarships for children of wounded and fallen soldiers,” said Forbes. Fortune estimated the Obamas’ net worth to be $12.2 million when they left the White House in January 2017.
Lucrative post-presidency
In March 2017, the Obamas signed a joint $65 million deal with Penguin Random House for one memoir each “that appears to be bigger than any previous presidential book deal in history,” said Vox. Michelle Obama’s book, “Becoming,” was published in 2018. It “employs the techniques of a novel more than those of a typical political memoir,” resulting in a book that was “surprisingly candid, richly emotional and granularly detailed,” said Vanity Fair. It “sold more copies than any other book published in the United States in 2018,” said Penguin Random House.
Barack Obama’s memoir of his time in office, “A Promised Land,” was published in 2020. It was “less a personal memoir than an unusual sort of history, one recounted by the man at the center of it,” said The Washington Post. It sold almost three million copies in its first year alone and was the “top print title in 2020,” the turbulent year that was “marred by a deadly pandemic and extraordinary political and racial strife,” said Publisher’s Weekly. He has been working on a second volume of that memoir, and the “new tome is nearing completion,” said Deadline in September 2024. A release date has not been announced.
President Obama “reportedly earned $800,000 for two speeches and at least $2 million for three talks” in 2017 alone, said Yahoo Entertainment. Those fees drew widespread scrutiny, as he “immediately stepped into controversy over his post-White House buck-raking,” said the Los Angeles Times. In 2018, the Obamas founded a production company, Higher Ground Productions, and signed an agreement for an undisclosed amount of money with the streaming service Netflix. That agreement gave the “Obamas a global platform in the Trump era, connecting them with an audience of more than 120 million Netflix subscribers in more than 190 countries,” said NBC News. Some critics assailed the deal “as being more about name recognition than actual content,” said The New York Times.
The company has produced scripted and unscripted television and movies, including the children’s show “Waffles and Mochi” as well as the 2023 post-apocalyptic thriller “Leave the World Behind.” President Obama reportedly had a hands-on role in the adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel about a family navigating a series of mysterious global events at their vacation rental, but the “President’s input came after the story’s script was formulated,” said Forbes.
In 2022, Higher Ground signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which “signals further growth for their company,” said Deadline. CAA is a “powerhouse talent agency” with a “star-studded” roster of “Hollywood actors and sports legends,” including actress Meryl Streep and baseball star Shohei Ohtani, said CBS News. That same year, Higher Ground signed a deal with Amazon’s Audible service that “includes multiple audio projects that will be distributed worldwide,” said CNN. The amount of money that the Obamas make from Higher Ground is unknown.
The Obamas bought and moved into a home in Washington, D.C., for $8.1 million in 2017, and still maintain their residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago that they purchased in 2005. It remains a “secret how often the former first family stays” in their Chicago residence, but it is “often enough that the tree out front has been cicada-proofed,” said Chicago Magazine. They also bought an estate on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, in 2019 for $11.75 million. Forbes estimated the Obamas’ net worth in September 2024 at $70 million.
