Former White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci earned $3.5 million in his first year after leaving government service and may have misled Congress about the timing of his retirement, newly released documents show. According to a 141-page financial disclosure obtained by the watchdog group Open The Books, Fauci received multiple six-figure deposits throughout 2023 totaling $1.15 million. The documents do not specify the source of these payments.
Fauci capitalized on his high-profile role as a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic to significantly boost his post-retirement income, even as congressional investigators intensified their scrutiny into his actions and decisions during the crisis. In March 2023, Anthony Fauci reportedly sold his memoir to a Penguin Random House subsidiary for $5 million. The deal came as a congressional memo revealed that Fauci had privately “prompted” the writing of a key paper dismissing the possibility that COVID-19 originated from a lab accident, the Daily Caller reported.
On July 1, 2023, Fauci began a new role at Georgetown University as a distinguished university professor in both the School of Medicine and the School of Public Policy. About two weeks later, two coauthors of the paper appeared before Congress to testify about their collaboration with Fauci. The White House on Friday updated the official covid.gov page to highlight this paper, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” and Fauci’s behind-the-scenes role in downplaying the “lab leak theory.”
In 2023, Fauci accepted speaking engagements from several special interest groups and trade associations, including the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)—organizations with policy interests that overlap with the federal government’s COVID-19 response and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which Fauci led for nearly 40 years. Despite ongoing congressional scrutiny over his support for gain-of-function research—such as the coronavirus experiments funded by NIAID in Wuhan, China—Fauci’s reputation in the scientific community remained highly profitable throughout the year.
In 2023, Anthony Fauci received prestigious awards from top academic institutions, including Columbia University’s Calderone Prize, which carried a $50,000 monetary award, and the National Academy of Medicine’s Lienhard Prize, worth $40,000. Fauci’s final government salary reached a record-setting $480,654—the highest of any federal employee, including the president—according to data from Open The Books. He continues to draw a six-figure pension. Fauci’s net worth nearly doubled from $7.6 million in January 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, to $15 million by 2023. He also continued to receive taxpayer-funded transportation and security services through the U.S. Marshals Service as a private citizen.
“Dr. Fauci’s assets soared during the worst of the draconian Covid lockdowns while families and small businesses struggled through school closures and lost income. Now it’s clear the cash kept coming during his first year of ‘retirement,’” said Open The Books CEO John Hart. “He was rubbing elbows with groups like AHIP flanked by taxpayer-funded security — even as his wife remained the top bioethicist at NIH.” Amid concerns Fauci misled Congress under oath about the research in Wuhan, former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a pardon on Jan. 20.