Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp., was reportedly opposed to Donald Trump becoming president.
Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp., was reportedly opposed to Donald Trump becoming president.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Michael Wolff writes in a new piece that “Murdoch instructed [then-Fox News CEO Roger] Ailes to tilt to anyone but Trump...even Hillary.”
According to Wolff, the Murdoch family was not pleased with Ailes’ support of Trump; this included, “not just the liberal sons...but also the father, whose tabloid, the New York Post, helped create Trump, but who found him now, with great snobbery, not of ‘our’ conservative class.”
Wolff notes, “It was Ailes’ tacit support of Trump that, in part, made his removal from Fox all the more urgent for the Murdochs.”
Wolff says the piece, which marks the anniversary of Ailes’ dismissal from Fox News over sexual harassment allegations, was based on regular conversations he had with the man before his death in May.
The report adds to speculation about the relationship between Trump and Murdoch who reportedly speak regularly on the phone.
As White House press secretary Sean Spicer told NPR in March, “They have been friends for a long time. They speak on occasion as the president does with all his friends.”
However, during the campaign, Murdoch reportedly backed Trump's opponent Jeb Bush, notes The Guardian.
And more recently, some outlets have suggested that the media mogul may be sending the president a message by printing critical stories about him and his family in papers like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.