Barack Obama will earn the equivalent of his annual presidential salary to speak at a Wall Street lunch conference later this year.
Fox Business Network reports that Obama will earn $400,000 to speak at a healthcare conference for investment banking firm Cantor Fitzgerald in September.
“We understand that he is going to be the keynote speaker for the lunch, and he’s going to receive a fee of $400,000,” reported Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino.
That hefty payout, which is roughly seven times the median household income in the U.S., puts Obama in the same league as Bill Clinton on the lucrative presidential speaking circuit. But unlike Clinton, Obama was a vocal critic of Wall Street as president. As Fox Business notes, Obama derided “fat cat bankers on Wall Street” during a 2009 TV interview and regularly blamed big banks for the 2008 recession.
Gasparino says that Obama has signed a contract for the appearance but that he has the option of backing out of the event if any scheduling conflicts arise.
The news comes on the same day that Obama attended his first public event since leaving office. The Democrat appeared pro bono at a forum at the University of Chicago, the planned site of his presidential library.