Rupert Murdoch is worth $19 billion and has been married 4 times - here's how he went from operating a small Australian paper to helming one of the biggest networks in the world
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- Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch, 87, helms a media empire made up of newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, television networks like Fox News, and a handful of other publications across the world.
- Murdoch inherited his very first newspaper from his father, who was a war reporter turned publisher.
- Bloomberg estimates his net worth to be $19 billion, as of March 2019.
Rupert Murdoch's name is one synonymous with media, but it took decades to build his sprawling empire.
He owns dozens upon dozens of newspapers spanning 3 continents, founded the Fox network - responsible for revolutionizing cable television to what it is today - in the 1980s, and has a net worth $19 billion. That makes him the 47th-richest person in the world.
Forbes describes his wealth as self-made, but Murdoch has been interested in media ever since his dad, Keith, left him a string of Australian newspapers when he was just 22 years old.
He then grew his network of papers into a multibillion-dollar domain, cementing his name as a magnate in the industry. The 87-year-old plans to do the same as his father - Murdoch is handing off the reigns of 21st Century Fox, among his other corporations, to his sons to continue the tradition.
Over the span of his five-decade career, Murdoch has been in four marriages and has six kids. He's also been the subject of variety of scandals, most prominently when his UK-based paper News of the World was forced to shutter after it was found to have hacked the phone of a slain teenager.
Take a look at how Murdoch got his start, the deals he has made, and the growth of his empire.
Rupert Murdoch graduated from Oxford University, then known as Worcester College, in 1952.
Murdoch, seen here in 1960, inherited a chain of Australian newspapers from his father. According to Bloomberg, Murdoch embedded himself in all matters of production, from writing copy to managing the printer and redesigning page layouts.
Murdoch then went on to found Australia's first nationwide newspaper, The Australian, in 1964. Unlike Murdoch's other papers, it is not a tabloid.
Murdoch made his first UK purchase in 1968, buying News of the World. He would later also acquire The Sun.
In 1981, he bought the Times Group — two papers in the UK, Sunday Times and The Times, adding them to his growing international portfolio.
Murdoch moved to New York City in the late 70s, and bought his first US newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News, though many say Murdoch came to stride in the 80s when he purchased the New York Post and New York magazine.
In 1987, Murdoch bought what is now book publishing giant Harper Collins for $293 million. He still owns the publishing house today.
It was during the 1980s that Murdoch began his Fox empire, buying stake in 20th Century Fox and subsequently creating television stations, effectively transforming cable television.
In 1989, Murdoch became a naturalized US citizen.
Murdoch has been married four times; he married his first wife, Patricia Booker, in 1956, when he was 25. The couple divorced 11 years later. Prudence, born in 1958, is Murdoch and Booker's eldest child and daughter.
About a year after his first marriage ended, Murdoch married Anna Torv; the couple had three children — Elisabeth, James, and Lachlan — and divorced in 1999. Elisabeth, Murdoch's second child and daughter, was born 10 years after Prudence.
Just 17 days after divorcing his second wife, Murdoch married Wendi Deng, whom he met while she was working at Star TV in Hong Kong, in 1999.
They have two teenage daughters, Grace, 16, and Chloe, 18.
Murdoch would go on to buy social network MySpace for $580 million in 2005, only to sell it for $35 million a few years later.
Murdoch's News Corp won a bid to buy Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and others, in 2007 for $5 billion.
Murdoch is also very close with former Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson. Murdoch made Thomson, who is also from Australia, the CEO of News Corp. in 2013.
In 2009, The Guardian published an article about illicit phone hacking conducted by News of the World into the voicemail of a British teenager who had been killed.
Two years later, the Murdoch family announced plans to shutter the paper after 168 of operations.
In 2015, 21st Century Fox announced that Murdoch would be handing off new leadership roles to his two sons, James and Lachlan, keeping the company in the family.
Lachlan celebrated the promotion by buying a $29 million, 13,500-square-foot home in Aspen, Colorado in 2017.
Murdoch himself doesn't mind living lavishly — he owns an $84 million Gulfstream G650.
He also bought this Bel Air mansion for $28.8 million in 2013.
In 2014, Murdoch bought the top four floors in the One Madison Park building in New York City, just steps away from Madison Square Park, for $57.5 million. The penthouse offers vast views of Lower Manhattan and Midtown, with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Murdoch bought a 180-foot yacht in 2006 and named it Rosehearty, after a village home to his ancestors in Scotland. He later sold it after his divorce from Deng in 2013.
Murdoch and former supermodel Jerry Hall got married at St. Bride's church in London in March of 2016.
Hall is his fourth wife and was formerly involved with Mick Jagger, with whom she has four kids.
Although many of Murdoch's publications and television networks lean toward the right politically, he tried to convince former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for president against Donald Trump in 2016.
Yet, since the 2016 presidential election, Murdoch and Trump have become quite close. In 2017, The New York Times reported that Murdoch calls Trump at the White House a few times a week to chat about politics and business.
Their relationship was not always friendly, though. When Trump was an up-and-comer in the real-estate industry, Murdoch's Page Six would often cover the saucy details of his personal life.
Murdoch's ex-wife Deng is good friends with Trump's daughter Ivanka. Deng even played a part in getting Ivanka back with husband Jared Kushner when the two briefly broke up in 2008.
In 2017, Murdoch-run 21st Century Fox announced it would sell to Disney for $71.1 billion.
Disney will acquire the famed Fox Hollywood studios and various other television operations of the Murdoch family-controlled group, which is responsible for blockbusters like Avatar and series like The Simpsons.
So what's left after the sale? A lot, actually. Lachlan Murdoch heads Fox News, the Fox Broadcasting network and the FS1 cable sports network, while Rupert himself still helms News Corporation, and the handful of newspapers it publishes.
After news of the Disney deal broke, Murdoch's net worth jumped by $1.2 billion. As of March 2019, it sits at $19.8 billion.
Forbes lists the Murdoch family as #39 on the most powerful families in the world; Murdoch himself is the 47th-richest person in the world.
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