[2][3][4] In his role as senior advisor to President Joe Biden, Podesta oversees the disbursement of $370–783 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

[7] Podesta spent most of his early years in Chicago, where he was born, growing up in the neighborhood of Jefferson Park on the city's Northwest Side.

[14] Podesta worked as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice's Honors Program in the Land and Natural Resources Division (1976–77), and as a Special Assistant to the Director of ACTION, the Federal volunteer agency (1978–79).

In 1988, he and his brother Tony co-founded Podesta Associates, Inc., a Washington, D.C., "government relations and public affairs" lobbying firm.

Now known as the Podesta Group, the firm "has close ties to the Democratic Party and the Obama administration [and] has been retained by some of the biggest corporations in the country, including Wal-Mart, BP and Lockheed Martin.

Podesta encouraged Executive Order 12958, which led to efforts to declassify millions of pages from the U.S. diplomatic and national security history.

In 2009, he accompanied Bill Clinton to North Korea for negotiations securing the release of two American journalists imprisoned on espionage charges.

At a 2002 news conference organized by Coalition for Freedom of Information Podesta stated that, "It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon.

"[30] Podesta wrote the foreword for a book by Leslie Kean titled "UFOs- Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record".

In 2013, Podesta earned $90,000 as a consultant to the West Chester, Pennsylvania-based HJW Foundation, a nonprofit group led by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss.

[38][39][40] For nearly two years in this role, Podesta oversaw the $370–783 billion climate investment authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which was passed the previous month.

[42] On October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks started to publish thousands of emails reportedly retrieved from Podesta's private Gmail account, some of which contained controversial material regarding Clinton's positions or campaign strategy.

[44][45] Experts investigating the leak, including a private security firm called Secureworks, claimed that a Russian hacking group named Fancy Bear gained access to Podesta's account through phishing.