The president of the University of Pennsylvania is poised to become U.S. Ambassador to Germany after paying then-Vice President Joe Biden $900,000 for a job at the Ivy League school that required no regular classes and up to 12 appearances on campus.
Penn President Amy Gutmann will likely be announced as Biden’s pick for the prime ambassadorship, raising questions about whether the slot is payback for the lucrative position Biden held at Penn after leaving the vice president’s office in 2017, according to news reports.
Upon accepting the offer, Biden became the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor, the first person to hold the position.
Biden collected $371,159 in 2017 and $540,484 in 2018 and early 2019 for a job with largely undefined duties. The agreement also required around a dozen appearances on campus, most of which were attended by wealthy donors paying top-dollar for tickets.
