The money flowed in fast. Bill delivered the first of hundreds of high-paying speeches on February 5, 2001, less than three weeks after he left the presidency, talking to Morgan Stanley in New York for $125,000. The firm got a bargain. Bill eventually raised his average rate to roughly $225,000 per speech, in some cases charging $500,000, according to disclosure documents Hillary filed as a senator and cabinet member. In 2005, Bill even charged $125,000 for giving a video conference from New York to a group called HSM Italia. All told, he raked in about $100 million from speaking from 2001 to 2014.
The former president also made a fortune writing books. In 2004, he published his memoir My Life, which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. From 2001-05, Clinton listed his speaking and writing as a joint business on his tax return, so it’s difficult to tell exactly how much he made from books versus speaking during that period. But the revenues for his speaking engagements are detailed in annual disclosure reports Hillary filed as a senator. Taking those revenues and figuring that his speaking business produced similar margins from 2001-05 to those it made in 2006 and 2007, Forbes estimated how much of his earnings came from each source during the five years in which they are listed as a combined business on the Clintons’ tax returns. According to our calculations, Bill Clinton made an estimated $29 million from writing from 2001-05 and banked another $9 million from 2006 to 2014. The Clintons did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Bill made money in business as well, charging more than $15 million to serve as an advisor to investment firm Yucaipa, led by billionaire Ron Burkle, from 2003 to 2008. Clinton declared a loss of about $725,000 when he disposed of his Yucaipa partnership in 2008. The next year he began consulting for two other companies, Shangri-La Industries and Wasserman Investments. Over two years, Clinton collected $2.5 million from Shangri-La Industries and $3.1 million from Wasserman Investments.
In 2010, Clinton added his most lucrative consulting client, for-profit college company Laureate Education. Over five years, Laureate paid Clinton a total of $16 million. The former president also consulted for another for-profit education company, GEMS Education, from 2011 to 2014, earning $6 million over that span. In total, Bill made a sum of $27 million from consulting, in addition to the millions he got from from Yucaipa.
While Bill was earning a fortune, Hillary was working in the Senate, and later in President Obama’s cabinet as Secretary of State, earning relatively meager government salaries. She supplemented her income with money from her books. From 2001 to 2007, Hillary made an average of $1.3 million a year as an author, largely thanks to her 2003 bestseller Living History.
Hillary didn’t bring in the sort of money her husband did until 2013, when she left her post as Secretary of State. She quickly jumped into a lucrative speaking tour, starting, as Bill had 12 years earlier, by giving a speech to Morgan Stanley. On April 18, 2013, she spoke to the firm and charged $225,000. She continued speaking throughout the year, talking exclusively to audiences in the United States and Canada, never charging less than $225,000 for a paid speech. By the end of the year, she had earned $9 million from speaking.
The former first lady repeated the performance in 2014, earning another $9 million on the speaking tour, more than her husband Bill, who made $8 million from speaking last year. Bill made $6 million consulting for Laureate and GEMS Education, while Hillary brought in $5 million from her books. Add it all up, and the Clintons earned a record $28 million in 2014. That was more than the total compensation for the CEOs of some of America’s largest corporations, including JPMorgan, Apple and Wal-Mart. To be fair, the Clintons have two breadwinners, whereas those companies only have a single CEO.
In total, the power couple made $229 million from 2001 to 2014 before taxes, according to their tax returns. They have not completed or released their 2015 tax returns, but a disclosure Hillary filed earlier this year showed that the Clintons’ speaking businesses had collected $5 million in fees through May 14, meaning the Clintons' earnings passed $230 million at some point in 2015.
What makes the Clintons different than most business tycoons, many of whom are featured on the Forbes World’s Billionaires list, is that they have made their fortune in straight cash, not equity gains. The people featured on our billionaires list are worth far more than the Clintons, but the vast majority of their wealth is wrapped up in their ownership of various companies. Many of the billionaires on our list take in less cash each year than the Clintons. Bill and Hillary’s liquidity gives them a war chest to employ during political campaigns. In 2008, Hillary loaned her campaign $13.2 million. She has never disclosed paying herself back.
It is unclear exactly what the Clintons have done with the rest of the money they have made. Layering years of disclosure documents on top of annual tax returns, Forbes estimates that the Clintons are worth a combined $45 million. They spent $95 million on taxes, their two houses cost a combined $5 million, and they gave $22 million to charity from 2001-14, according to historical tax returns and property records. But as Forbes outlined in a separate story last month, that leaves $50 million missing.
“That’s kind of strange,” said Joe Biden’s accountant, Walter Deyhle. “You have to report all of your assets. You have to report assets that are owned by your spouse.”
One thing that is clear: The Clintons no longer have to worry if they can afford that multimillion-dollar house in Washington, D.C., or really anything else.
