- He is worth $17.1 billion.
2. Born on the 11th of March 1931
3. Born in Melbourne, Australia.
4. Went to a very prestigious uni, Oxford.
5. In his early life he was an Australian newspaper publisher.
6. He was also a media entrepreneur.
7. This was largely because his father was a famous war correspondent and publisher.
8. His father died in 1953, leaving him to inherit two newspapers in Australia.
9. He was able to increase the newspaper’s circulation by emphasising the problems of sex, crime, and scandals.
10. He bought and built up the Perth Sunday Times in 1956.
11. In 1960 he bought the significantly declining Sydney Daily.
12. He turned the Sydney Daily into the most bought newspaper in Australia.
13. He became a US Citizen in 1985 in order to be able to expand his market to US television broadcasting.
14. For his first job, he worked as an editor on Lord Beaverbrook’s London Daily Express.
15. In Britain in 1989, he inaugurated Sky Television.
16. Murdoch’s media empire includes Fox News, Fox Sports, the Fox Network, The Wall Street Journal, and HarperCollins.
17. He wrote papers which supported the labour party in 1997, 1001 and 2005 for the elections.
18. In 2011, Murdoch along with his son James provided testimony before a British parliamentary committee regarding phone hacking.
19. This was after a young girl who was murdered had her phone hacked by reporters/journalists in order to make a story.
20. He attended a private meeting in London with the family of the girl, where he personally apologized for the hacking of their murdered daughter’s phone.
21. In 2012 a panel wrote a critical report about him, stating that he was not fit to lead a major company.
22. In 2015 Murdoch was succeeded as CEO at 21st Century Fox by James, his son.
23. In 2017 he agreed to sell most of the holdings of 21st Century Fox to the Disney Company.
24. Two years later this deal with Disney closed and was valued at about $71 billion.
25. Fox News and various other TV channels were excluded from the sale, and they became part of the newly formed Fox Corporation.