The youngest son of President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden has made – and lost – a fortune during his frequently controversial career. Along the way there have been accusations of nepotism, corruption, and other alleged wrongdoings.
As Hunter hits headlines yet again, read on to discover how the POTUS's son got rich, and what he's spent his cash on over the years.
The second son of Joe Biden and his first wife Neilia, Hunter was born on 4 February 1970 in his father's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
Tragedy struck the family just before Christmas 1972, when Hunter, his brother Beau, and their sister Naomi were involved in a catastrophic car crash alongside their mother.
The accident claimed the lives of Hunter's mother and sister, and left Hunter and Beau seriously injured.
Both boys recovered after spending several months in hospital and went on to do well at school.
Hunter was accepted into Georgetown University, graduating in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in history. He later studied at Georgetown University Law Center before attending the prestigious Yale Law School.
In November 2022, Joe Biden revealed that his second wife, Jill, once called him "the poorest man" in Congress.
With money tighter for the Bidens in their pre-presidency days, the young Hunter had to pay his way through college, working two jobs to cover accommodation costs.
Between his degrees, the future attorney served as a Jesuit volunteer in a church in Portland, Oregon. Here, he met Kathleen Buhle, who he married in July 1993. The couple welcomed their daughter Naomi later that year.
After graduating from Yale Law School in 1996, Hunter was hired as his father's deputy Senate election campaign manager and landed a plum lawyer position at banking company MBNA.
The appointment raised eyebrows since Joe had been a long-time advocate of the credit card bankruptcy bill supported by the Delaware-based bank and accepted generous donations from its employees.
Joe was even dubbed "the senator from MBNA" by one media outlet.
Hunter was making $100,000 (£88k) a year in his job at MBNA, having bagged a fat signing bonus.
By 1998, the young attorney had been promoted to executive vice president. However, the bank's stuffy corporate culture proved a serious turn-off and Hunter set his sights on a job in Bill Clinton's administration instead.
According to the New Yorker, Hunter called on the well-connected Washington DC lawyer William Oldaker, who had worked on his father's 1987 presidential campaign, to make it happen.
Hunter got a job working under Commerce Secretary William Daley as executive director of e-commerce policy.
Salary-wise, the position was relatively modest. Hunter told The New Yorker in 2019 that he barely managed to cover rent and other expenses while living in DC during this period. By now a father of three, he also had to factor in the steep school fees that he needed to pay for daughters Naomi, Finnegan, and Maisie.
Fresh from his role with the Clinton administration, Hunter scored a consultancy job back at MBNA in 2001. This move netted him an annual salary of more than $100,000 (£88k) for the next five years.
In the meantime, he also co-founded Oldaker Biden & Belair, a lobbying firm that he started with Oldaker and top lawyer Robert Belair. It specialised in advocating for a client base made up of colleges, hospitals, and drug research companies.
The firm pulled in a total of $3.8 million (£3.3m) between 2002 and 2007, including $143,000 (£126k) from Joe's presidential campaign for "legal services".
Faced with conflict-of-interest questions, Hunter, who had also taken up an unpaid position on the board of US rail company Amtrak, ditched both roles in 2008 when his father was elected as US Vice President.
But allegations by both Republicans and some media outlets that the senior politician's son was capitalising on his dad's position and shamelessly trying to benefit from his influence continued to swirl...
Together with his uncle James Biden (pictured), Hunter had acquired the Paradigm hedge fund in 2006. The venture was financed with a $8.1 million (£7.1m) promissory note that was seemingly never repaid, according to New Republic.
By 2008, Paradigm was steeped in controversy and the pair was sued by two former associates who accused them of fraudulently obtaining the fund. The cases were later dropped.
Paradigm was also associated with several major scandals, as outlined by Politico, including the notorious Ponta Negra Ponzi scheme. James and Hunter have also been accused of leveraging their relationship with Joe to benefit the fund.
Hunter was reportedly paid $1.2 million (£1.1m) a year as Paradigm CEO. Along with his uncle, he allegedly withdrew several million dollars at some point in 2008 or 2009 for personal use, according to Politico.
However, no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the Bidens has ever been uncovered.
Mindful of the negative press that Paradigm was generating, the Biden duo began to wind down the fund in 2010.
By this point, Hunter had already gone into business with John Kerry’s stepson Christopher Heinz, and Devon Archer (pictured), a former Abercrombie & Fitch model.
The trio set up several advisory and investment firms under the name Rosemont Seneca, with a focus on helping companies expand into foreign markets.
On top of his involvement in these ventures, Hunter also took up a short-lived executive VP position at construction company HillStone International. He also held an "of counsel" role for law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, for which he was allegedly paid $216,000 (£190k) a year according to the New York Post.
Hunter's most contentious – and lucrative – career moves came via the international Rosemont Seneca ventures.
In 2013, for example, he was appointed to the board of China-based private equity fund BHR Partners. This came shortly after he accompanied his father on an official trip to the country, which some considered to be suspicious.
Hunter went on to acquire a 10% stake of the company in 2017, at a cost of more than $420,000 (£369k).
Hunter's activities in China didn't stop there. According to NBC News, the attorney earned $5.8 million (£5.1m) between 2013 and 2018 thanks to two deals with Chinese interests.
One was with Ye Jianming, the boss of the now defunct energy company CEFC, and netted Hunter $4.8 million (£4.2m).
The tycoon had been courting US officials "to gain access to the corridors of power in Washington", according to The New York Times.
Prior to the deal, Jianming reportedly gifted Hunter a 2.8 carat diamond that was estimated to be worth up to $80,000 (£70k).
In 2018, Jianming, who has been linked to bribery and corruption, was taken into custody by the Chinese authorities and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
Hunter resigned from the BHR board in 2019 and vowed to stop working with foreign-owned companies should his father be elected President of the USA in 2020.
And no wonder, considering the furore surrounding his involvement with Ukrainian natural gas giant Burisma Holdings...
In 2014, Hunter had been given a coveted seat on the board of Burisma Holdings, for which he's said to have earned up to $50,000 (£44k) a month until his term expired in 2019.
On top of conflict-of-interest allegations, Joe was accused by President Trump of orchestrating the firing of Ukraine's Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to prevent Burisma from being investigated for corruption – an unfounded claim that contributed to Trump's first impeachment in 2019.
Neither the American nor the Ukrainian authorities have found anything untoward about the arrangement.
All in all, Hunter earned $11 million (£9.7m) between 2013 and 2018, according to NBC News.
In 2020, this was further bolstered by a reported $2 million (£1.8m) advance from Simon & Schuster for his memoir, Beautiful Things.
Hunter is also said to have received loans totalling around $2 million (£1.8m) from Hollywood entertainment lawyer Kevin Morris to help him pay off a massive tax debt in 2020.
More problems arose for Hunter with the emergence of the infamous "laptop from hell", which he allegedly left in this innocuous-looking Wilmington computer repair store in April 2019. Initially dismissed as bogus by security services and reputable media outlets, some of the contents of the water-damaged MacBook Pro's hard drive have since been authenticated.
Republicans are pressing for a further probe, while right-wing group Marco Polo says it's found evidence of 140 "business-related" crimes, 128 "drug-related" crimes, and 191 "sex-related" crimes.
With his business affairs under intense scrutiny, Hunter turned to art to make ends meet – a venture that's proved similarly controversial due to fears that people could snap up the artwork in a bid to gain influence with President Biden.
Hunter announced that he was planning to become a full-time artist back in 2021, the latest move in a colourful, and at times chequered, career. According to artnet.com, Hunter – who has no formal artistic training – has been painting since he was a child and likes to use art as a way of "trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth". But the GOP-run House Select Committee believes Hunter's artistic ventures could be hiding rather than revealing the truth...
A selection of Hunter's work (an example is pictured) was first showcased in LA's Milk Studios in October 2021. The pieces were priced at up to $500,000 (£422k) each, which is astoundingly high for a debut artist. Although experts have praised the artwork – including Mark Tribe of the MFA Fine Arts Department at New York City's School of Visual Arts, who told the New York Post that he thinks "it's pretty strong" – some people have questioned why the pieces have been so highly valued.
Hunter is represented by the art dealer Georges Bergès, who owns galleries in both New York and Berlin. In December last year Hunter's second solo exhibition Haiku opened at the Georges Bergès gallery in SoHo, with pieces on sale for up to $225,000 (£181k). But both Hunter and Bergès have refused to disclose exactly who bought the paintings or how much they paid.
Art dealer Alex Acevedo has said that Hunter's connection to Joe Biden is likely behind the sky-high prices, saying: "Anybody who buys it would be guaranteed instant profit. He's the president's son... the provenance is impeccable." He added that he suspected the art would be valued at $25,000 (£20.2k) to $100,000 (£80.7k) if it weren't for Hunter's pre-existing fame.
The White House reportedly introduced measures to prevent potential buyers from being able to curry favour with President Biden. The new ethics guidelines kept the identities of buyers hidden, including from the President himself, to shield him from accusations of corruption. However, that assurance hasn't been enough to ease Republican fears that Hunter's art sales are painting over some unethical practices, with critics arguing the lack of transparency could enable shady deals to take place.
On 25 January, James Comer (pictured) – chairman of the GOP-run House Oversight Committee – sent a letter to Georges Bergès telling him to hand over any communications he's had with the White House and Hunter Biden. He's also requested information about the people who've bought Hunter's artwork, as well as any attendees of exhibitions featuring his paintings. To comply with the letter, Georges Bergès was ordered to appear for interview no later than 15 February this year, but a New York Post article dated 1 June claims he's "repeatedly refused to provide any information".
Comer wrote: "It is concerning that President Biden's son is the recipient of anonymous, high-dollar transactions – potentially from foreign buyers – with no accountability or oversight (other than you). The American people deserve transparency regarding certain details about Hunter Biden's expensive art transactions."
In the latest twist, the Georges Bergès Gallery contacted the police earlier this month to report a possible computer hack of its financial records. According to the New York Post, a client notified the gallery to say they had received an invoice from an account that wasn't linked to Georges Bergès, just days after staff discovered the venue's phone number had been "compromised" by a number traced to Turkey.
It's not clear whether the alleged security breach has any bearing on the Biden investigation. But we do know that Bergès is still refusing to comply with the committee, and that continuing to ignore the congressional subpoena could result in a $1,000 (£785) fine and up to a year in jail.
And Hunter's problems don't end there. At 10am on 26 July, Joe Biden's son plans to plead guilty to two misdemeanour charges of failing to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018, as well as one felony charge for failing to disclose his drug use when he purchased a gun in 2018.
According to Delaware attorney David Weiss, Hunter reached a plea deal on 20 June. It's expected the deal will enable him to avoid jail time, an arrangement Republicans are branding a "slap on the wrist" when other people have received much harsher sentences for similar crimes.
According to former Texas congressman John Ratcliffe: "The judge in this case shouldn't accept the plea, because... judges are required to look at all of the defendant's conduct. And in this case, you start with some of that conduct being on videotape and showing felony possession of a firearm while using a controlled substance, that's a felony that carries a maximum penalty of ten years."
Hot on the heels of this revelation, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley has revealed that Hunter sent Chinese businessman Henry Zhao a series of threatening WhatsApp messages in July 2017. In the messages, Hunter – who was reportedly staying at his father's Delaware guest house at the time – claims: "I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hands, and now means tonight... I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."
It's not clear what "the commitment" involves, and Hunter's lawyers have reportedly said the texts were sent when he was in the midst of drug addiction. Republicans are now calling for a full investigation into whether Biden abused his position of power to enrich his son, an accusation the Bidens have repeatedly denied.
Tallying up his considerable artwork revenue with the $11 million (£9.7m) Hunter earned between 2013 and 2018, plus the $2 million (£1.8m) book advance and his various other income streams, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Hunter Biden is a very rich man. Yet according to some sources, he's worth a comparatively paltry $1 million (£844k) and not a cent more, having burned through astonishing amounts of money over the years.
So how has the POTUS's son spent all that cash that he's managed to accumulate throughout his career?
Hunter has been open about his financial difficulties in the past, telling The New Yorker in 2019 that he's "pretty much always lived paycheck to paycheck" and describing paying his bills as "a high-wire act".
As recounted in his first wife's memoir, the couple lived well above their means when they first married and only just about managed to fund their flashy lifestyle with the money that was actually coming in.
Flush with cash from his MBNA role, 1997 saw Hunter buy a run-down Wilmington estate that could be dated back to before the Revolutionary War of 1775-83. He sold the historic property a year later for twice what he'd paid for it.
Hunter and his family then relocated to a fancy rental in Washington DC's upscale Tenleytown neighbourhood. Hunter could barely afford to cover his bills, which included school fees for his three daughters.
The trio reportedly attended the prestigious Sidwell Friends School, a particularly popular establishment for families in the affluent political sphere.
Hunter and his family remained in Tenleytown until 2001, when they moved back to Delaware.
It wasn't long before the family returned to DC, with Hunter buying this Colonial-style mansion in the affluent Kent neighbourhood for just under $1.6 million (£1.4m). With no deposit behind him, he was forced to take out a 110% mortgage for the property.
While never exactly thrifty, Hunter's spending spiralled out of control after the tragic death of his older brother Beau, who passed away due to brain cancer in 2015.
The untimely passing of his beloved sibling plunged Hunter into a drug-fuelled spiral, during which he allegedly squandered huge sums of cash on illegal narcotics, alcohol, escorts, and luxury hotel rooms according to Daily Mail analysis of his laptop.
Supercars were another favourite, with his new motors further bolstering an enviable collection that reportedly already included a Porsche, an Audi, a BMW, and several Range Rovers.
According to his ex-wife Kathleen, Hunter cheated on her with several women, including his late brother's spouse Hallie. Hunter and Kathleen divorced in 2017.
While dating Hallie, Hunter fathered a child with former exotic dancer Lunden Roberts (pictured), who's alleged to have been on his payroll and to whom he's paying child support.
In September 2022, Hunter attempted to lower the payments, pleading poverty. A continuance on the matter was granted on 3 January this year – and it's not the only ongoing case involving his estranged child. Roberts is also campaigning for their daughter to use the surname Biden, a plea Hunter is fighting in court with the next hearing due in early February.
Hunter has also struggled to keep up with alimony and child support payments to his ex-wife Kathleen.
In 2019, he claimed to be living off just $4,000 (£3.5k) a month, while being expected to pay Kathleen $37,000 (£33k) over the same monthly period.
Last year, however, his former spouse told People magazine that she wasn't receiving alimony from Hunter and that there'd been no windfall divorce settlement.
Hunter's outgoings have been the subject of scrutiny over the years, with attention revving up after the discovery of classified documents in his father's Delaware garage. According to a background check from 2018, which recently resurfaced on Twitter, Hunter claimed he was paying $49,910 (£40.4k) in monthly rent to his father for the Delaware property where the documents were found; he was reportedly living there "off and on" in the wake of his 2017 divorce.
Suspicions arose when it was revealed that the property was valued at $1,380,800 (£1.12m), meaning his monthly rent was way above market value, prompting Donald Trump to describe the incident as "one of the greatest political and money laundering Scams of all time" on Truth Social.
Hunter had accumulated colossal debts and racked up an almighty tax bill which, as we've mentioned, was paid off in 2020.
Following the end of his marriage, the Washington DC home was sold for $1.6 million (£1.4m), which was almost exactly what he paid for it in 2006.
Hunter moved to LA, and went on to marry Melissa Cohen, a South African filmmaker and activist, in 2019. The couple set up home in a $12,000 (£10k)-a-month Hollywood Hills rental.
After their son Beau was born in 2020, Hunter and Melissa upgraded to a canal-side property in Venice Beach.
The family reportedly paid up to $25,000 (£22k) a month to rent the home, although they didn't stay there long. In early 2021, they moved to this equally luxurious – albeit more private – property in Malibu, which costs $20,000 (£18k) a month to rent.
The property boasts an artist's studio, where Hunter can paint to his heart's content – and make money to fund his next round of legal battles.
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