California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, who previously served as mayor of Los Angeles for eight years, has made millions of dollars in interesting ways since exiting the mayor's mansion with "no job, no house, no car."
Since leaving office in 2013, Villaraigosa has made more than $4 million by advising companies—including Herbalife, Banc of California, and natural resources company Cadiz—and through speaking fees, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing six years of tax returns his campaign released this week.
Villaraigosa also made money by teaching at the University of Southern California and receives a pension worth about $100,000 a year from working in local government.
Villaraigosa did consulting work for nearly two dozen clients, some of which are controversial, the Times noted.
Herbalife, for example, agreed to pay $200 million to its sellers and to change its business practices in a 2016 settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Nonetheless, Villaraigosa has defended the company.
"They were an L.A. company, an L.A. company whose product and their whole platform is about health and nutrition; they give people a shot at building, if not a small business, at least a little extra income on a monthly basis," Villaraigosa told La Opinion this month.
"My mother sold Tupperware and Avon, I know why Latinos and blacks do it: they need a few extra bucks," he added. "It's called a multiple-level marketing company. That's what Tupperware is, what Avon is—they've been around for 30 years. Pyramid schemes aren't around for 30 years."
Villaraigosa's adjusted gross income skyrocketed after he left the mayor's mansion, jumping from $155,775 in 2012, the final full year of his mayoral tenure, to $1.38 million in 2014. He recently said that he left office with "with no job, no house, no car" and made his money as a private citizen.