Tax Filings Just Exposed What Obama Insiders Are Getting Paid at His $850 Million Chicago Center

Valerie Jarrett collected $740,000 last year running Barack Obama's foundation.

She's not the only one – six of the Obama Foundation's ten highest-paid executives are former Obama White House insiders cashing enormous checks.

Now tax filings have confirmed exactly how much they're pulling down, and there's one number buried in the fine print that should make every Chicago taxpayer furious.

Obama's Inner Circle Is Getting Rich on Chicago Parkland

The Obama Presidential Center is rising on 19.3 acres of publicly owned Jackson Park – land the Obama Foundation secured for $10 under a 99-year agreement with the city.

Ten dollars.

That deal hands prime Chicago parkland to a private nonprofit while the foundation pays its CEO more than the leaders of the Bush, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton foundations each earn individually.

Jarrett took over as CEO in 2021. The foundation's total salary and benefits bill has since ballooned from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024, with 337 employees now on the payroll and annual revenue reaching nearly $210 million.

Jarrett is one name on a long list.

David Simas, Obama's former White House political director, pulled in up to $626,000 annually leading the foundation from 2017 to 2020.

Adewale Adeyemo – a senior Obama official who later served as Biden's deputy Treasury secretary – earned roughly $540,000 as the foundation's first president.

Anne Filipic, former White House public engagement official: $400,000.

Christina Tchen, Michelle Obama's former chief of staff: $400,000.

Michael Strautmanis, Obama campaign and White House aide: more than $300,000 annually.

Six of the ten highest-paid foundation executives held senior roles in the Obama administration or campaign.

This isn't a nonprofit drawing talent from across the country.

This is a jobs program for Obama's Washington inner circle – paid for with Chicago's public parks.

https://twitter.com/GlockfordFiles/status/2029546308751552959

The Endowment Promise That Was Never Kept

When the Obama Foundation locked in that $10 land deal in 2018, it pledged to establish a $470 million endowment to protect taxpayers if the project ever collapsed.

Today, that endowment holds approximately $1 million.

One million dollars – deposited in 2021 and barely touched since.

University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein didn't mince words: "An endowment means that you have the money in hand. But they have nothing."

Meanwhile, Chicago's capital improvement budget lists over $206 million in taxpayer-funded infrastructure tied to the Obama center – road redesigns, utility relocations, and construction work that made the whole project possible.

Obama pledged the project would cost taxpayers nothing.

The public infrastructure that made his building functional was paid for by the public.

When pressed on executive pay, the Obama Foundation pointed to larger philanthropic institutions – the Ford and MacArthur foundations each reported CEO compensation of roughly $1.29 million, and the Rockefeller and Mellon foundations paid their leaders more than $1.4 million in 2023.

What the foundation left out: the Ford Foundation sits on roughly $16 billion in assets. Mellon and MacArthur each exceed $8 billion.

The Obama Foundation reported $1.1 billion in total assets – most of it construction-related and restricted, not a real invested endowment earning operating income.

They're benchmarking their pay against institutions with genuine financial foundations while their own promised endowment holds less than the average American lottery jackpot.

Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi called it directly: "Illinois Democrats are truly living their best lives – making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help design the ugliest building in Chicago. Their jaw-dropping salaries prove that Illinois' culture of corruption is alive and well as Barack Obama's top allies rake in the cash."

Barack Obama spent eight years in the White House building one of the most scandal-ridden presidencies in modern history – Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives, spying on the Trump campaign, the Iran nuclear cash payments.

The media looked the other way every single time.

Now his inner circle is cashing in on Chicago's public parkland, the endowment is a fiction, and taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions in infrastructure costs that nobody will account for.

The presidential center isn't just Obama's legacy.

It's his business model.

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Sources:

• Michael Dorgan, "Valerie Jarrett Earned $740K as Obama Insiders Filled Top Roles During $850M Presidential Center Build," Fox News, March 11, 2026.
• Matt Margolis, "The Obama Foundation Is Even More Corrupt Than You Thought," PJ Media, March 11, 2026.
• "Obama Center Deposits Just $1M Into $470M Reserve Fund Aimed to Protect Taxpayers," Fox News, September 30, 2025.
• "Bureaucrats Hide True Price of Obama Presidential Center as Taxpayers Hit With Infrastructure Bill," Fox News, February 2026.