Rupert Murdoch’s papers have followed a scathing attack on Donald Trump with a rebuke to Elon Musk’s “job-slashing triumphalism”, widening a schism between the media mogul and the new US administration.
Despite joining the President as a guest in the Oval Office earlier this month, the 93 year-old Murdoch has used his papers to condemn both the style and substance of Trump’s second administration.
Last week, the News Corporation-owned New York Post and Wall Street Journal, along with Murdoch’s UK papers, launched a furious attack on the President’s move to ditch US support for Ukraine and cosy up to the “dictator” Putin.
The Post, once Trump’s “favourite newspaper”, has now extended its hostility to X owner Musk and the government efficiency drive headed by the world’s richest man.
In an editorial headlined, “Why Team Trump should beware its job-slashing triumphalism,” the Post warned the President and Musk against “gleefully declaring how much they enjoy making tens of thousands unemployed.”
It concluded: “So, Mr President, let’s leave the sophomoric triumphalism for cognitively impaired lib gerontocrats, social-media nobodies and the whole crowd of MAGA kibitzers. (And tell Elon to knock it off, too.)”
Until now Murdoch and Musk have enjoyed a cordial relationship. They sat next to each other at the 2023 Super Bowl.
Murdoch joined the world’s wealthiest man and other Republican-supporting billionaires at a private dinner, days before the November election.
The diners are said to have discussed how to use their influence to push Trump’s candidacy over the line.
But there is an inherent tension in the Murdoch-Musk concord. “Elon is 15 times richer than Rupert (Musk is worth $380bn) and he represents the all-powerful new tech oligarchs. Rupert’s business is legacy print and TV, old media,” a News Corp insider said.
“Most worrying for Murdoch, Musk now has the President’s ear and that’s the role Rupert has always played with world leaders. There is bound to be some jealousy.”
In a sign of how little regard Trump has for the Post’s call to cool the glee over drop losses, the President urged Musk to be even more aggressive in his mission to shrink the US government. Musk replied on his X platform that he would.
The Post salvo followed a front page in the paper, headlined “This is a dictator” next to a photo of Putin, designed to send a direct message to the President, who had accused Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky of refusing to hold elections.
“Turning the truth completely upside down ought to be beneath him,” the Post had said of the President’s accusation that Zelensky provoked the conflict with Russia. The paper said it would be “despicable” to “squeeze war-crippled Ukraine for all we can”.
Although Murdoch has always sought proximity to power, he has privately expressed reservations over Trump, once reportedly calling him a “f***ing idiot” and having initially backed alternative Republican candidates for the 2024 Presidential election.
Murdoch, whose Fox News makes huge profits by appealing to Trump’s electoral base, scrambled to get back on board with the ex-President when his re-election campaign took off.
However Murdoch allies say standing by Ukraine against Putin is “personal” to him – a Fox News reporter covering the conflict was seriously injured in a Russian attack, which killed two other journalists.
While Trump has praised Murdoch’s business record, the President says they disagree frequently, including over the threat to impose tariffs, which the Wall Street Journal called “the Dumbest Trade War in History”.
The Post has benefited from a symbiotic relationship with Trump over decades.
The property mogul’s explosive divorce from Ivana Trump was played out on the paper’s front pages in the early 90s, delivering huge sales for Murdoch’s paper. The tabloid has been generally positive towards Trump under Murdoch’s direction – until now.
The rift with Trump follows a tumultuous week for Murdoch. Well-sourced report have laid bare bitter family in-fighting over the patriarch’s attempts to install eldest son Lachlan as his undisputed successor, effectively disenfranchising his other children.
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