After their terms end, most U.S. presidents try to make their remaining time count. They often do so by building a presidential library and museum, as every commander-in-chief of the 20th and 21st centuries has done. Many of them also write an autobiography or presidential memoir, as former President Joe Biden is currently doing. But many ex-presidents have also undertaken more unusual tasks after leaving the White House.
Barack Obama
While former President Barack Obama’s presidential center recently opened in Chicago, the 44th president has been keeping busy in a variety of other ways. Most notable is Higher Ground, the production company he launched with Netflix in 2018 alongside his wife, Michelle Obama. The company began with film and television projects and has since branched out into documentaries and podcasts.
In April 2026, it was announced that Higher Ground would “transition to becoming independent when its current first-look deal with Netflix is up,” said Deadline, though the company will be “continuing to collaborate with the global streamer on existing projects.” The independence has allowed Higher Ground to work with other studios, including partnering with HBO on Larry David’s “seven-part sketch comedy series that’s an irreverent look at American history,” said NPR. The show features a cameo from the former president.
George W. Bush
After his presidency, George W. Bush mostly shunned the limelight, instead retiring to his ranch in Texas. But he took up several hobbies since leaving office, most notably painting. Bush’s artworks are “both more and less interesting than they initially seem,” said Artforum, and often feature world leaders he met during his time as president, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Beyond his brushstrokes, Bush is also an avid mountain biker and uses this to give back. He has “hosted a charity ride for veterans for years,” said Bike magazine, and in 2021 even released a short documentary about the ride. “Any day you ride with the vets is a good day,” Bush says in the video. Several veterans “who found community and healing in the sport of mountain biking were interviewed in the documentary,” said Bike.
Bill Clinton
It was Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had the more prestigious career after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the former president hasn’t kept to himself entirely these last 26 years — Clinton has remained largely active in global affairs. In 2009, he “arrived in North Korea” on a secret trip to “try to win the freedom of two American journalists,” said NPR. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the journalists after his visit.
That same year, Clinton was also appointed as the United Nations’ special envoy for Haiti, thereby “building on the former United States president’s extensive engagement with the Caribbean nation,” said the U.N. Clinton’s work on the island helped “support the efforts of the Haitian authorities to jumpstart sustainable social and economic development.” He remains closely tied to Haitian affairs.
Jimmy Carter
When former President Jimmy Carter died at age 100 in 2024, many said it was his post-presidency for which he’d be most remembered. While Carter’s time in the White House was largely seen as unsuccessful, upon leaving Washington he “intended, without returning to public office, to continue to work toward the promotion of peace, progress, and human rights throughout the world,” said the American Historical Association (AHA).
Carter used his four decades after his presidency to “promote peace in the Middle East, to address international security and arms control, and to close the gap between what we know how to do in health care and what is actually achieved,” said the AHA, largely through the creation of the Carter Center. He also waged a “war against ‘neglected’ diseases — diseases in far-off lands that most Americans will never suffer from and may not have even heard of,” said NPR. These efforts helped lead to the near-eradication of the parasitic Guinea worm disease.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
When Dwight D. Eisenhower’s time in office came to an end, the former World War II general went back to the military — sort of. Eisenhower “reactivated his commission as a five-star general in the United States Army.” Aside from George Washington, Eisenhower is the “only United States president with military service to reenter the Armed Forces after leaving the office of president,” said the Eisenhower Library.
But Eisenhower’s reactivation was largely in name only, as he soon retired to a small farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On this farm, Eisenhower and his wife “raised Angus cattle, painted,” and “traveled both for pleasure and to revisit the sites of past triumphs, as when they went to Normandy to film a documentary for the twentieth anniversary of D-Day,” said the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Before his death, Eisenhower also “consulted frequently with President Lyndon B. Johnson after LBJ committed combat troops to Vietnam.”
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge’s presidency has largely been forgotten in the 21st century, but he did take up a unique job after leaving the White House, becoming a journalist. Through the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, Coolidge “wrote a syndicated newspaper column between June 30, 1930, and June 29, 1931” called “Calvin Coolidge Says,” marking a “rare example of a former president weighing in on current events after leaving the White House,” said the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Coolidge also served a variety of other roles post-presidency. These included the “president of the American Antiquarian Society,” as well as a “directorship on the board of the New York Life Insurance Company” and “chairmanship of the National Transportation Committee, formed by a group of banks, insurance companies and other organizations interested in railway securities,” said The New York Times.
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft didn’t stay out of government long after his presidency ended in 1913; eight years later, the former president was appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. He remains the only person to have held both roles. The Supreme Court marked a leap back into public life for Taft, who first “became a professor of constitutional law” at Yale University after leaving the White House, said Encyclopedia Britannica.
As chief justice, Taft’s most “most important contribution to constitutional law was his opinion in Myers vs. United States,” a 1926 ruling “upholding the authority of the president to remove federal officials,” said Encyclopedia Britannica. And despite having served as president, Taft considered the judicial branch a higher calling. “To Taft,” said the White House Historical Association, the Supreme Court appointment was his “greatest honor; he wrote: ‘I don’t remember that I ever was president.’”
Most built museums or wrote books —but some went another way