Murdoch has picked a side – but not the one we expected

Rupert Murdoch has demonstrated that one is never too old to be unpredictable. At 94, he has swerved into a new political lane with his willingness to punch an oversized dent in Donald Trump’s armour – using his most credible news organ, The Wall Street Journal.

In doing so, Murdoch is asserting his media mogul credentials – that he is more important or will outlive any elected political leader. It represents a significant U-turn for Murdoch, who has publicly supported the president since his election and was seated in Trump’s VIP box for the FIFA Club World Cup only a week ago.

Donald Trump with his now-wife, Melania, alongside Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2000. Inset: Rupert Murdoch.

For Murdoch, whose partisan loyalties are seen to be dictated by his balance sheet interests as much as his political hue, steering out of the Trump lane seems in equal part risky and brave.

But it’s less risky than Elon Musk’s move to harpoon Trump by publicly criticising the president’s Big Beautiful Bill and threatening to create a new American political party. In doing so, Musk aimed his sights squarely at his own foot.

Murdoch’s gamble appears way more considered and one that demonstrates he has read the room far better than Musk.

He effectively shirt-fronted Trump last week by green-lighting the WSJ to publish a letter from Trump to the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein that allegedly contained a drawing of a naked woman on which Trump’s signature features prominently, with a message wishing that “every day be another wonderful secret”.

For Murdoch, it is a gamble on how much self-inflicted damage Trump has done to his brand with his trenchant determination to keep the Epstein file under wraps.

Trump’s entreaties to Murdoch and others inside the company to spike the story went nowhere. Then Trump made good on his knee-jerk social media response to “sue his [Murdoch’s] ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper” with a libel claim seeking $US10 billion in damages.

“We have just filed a powerhouse Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, fake news ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump wrote on social media.

Murdoch joins the list of large media organisations that have been sued by Trump, with CBS and the US ABC network each paying $24.6 million recently to settle with Trump.

Other media moguls, including Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, have been visible supporters of Trump, seemingly unwilling to risk their business interests by picking a fight with the president.

One can only salivate at what the legal discovery process could uncover if the Murdoch case found its way into the public arena.

But in many respects, plenty of Trump damage has already been inflicted. The WSJ story stirred up an already vocal and unhappy element within Trump’s MAGA base that feels there is a conspiracy afoot within the Trump administration to suppress releasing the contents of the Epstein files.

To be fair, the WSJ editorial stance to date has been generally unsupportive of Trump’s tariff war. To have condoned the trade policy in the face of overwhelming evidence from the economics and finance communities that the president’s moves will stir inflation and slow the economy would have been a credibility killer for the business-based publication.

So it has not been in Murdoch’s interests to support much of Trump’s economic policy agenda in the WSJ.

The same can’t be said for Murdoch’s highly conservative Fox News, whose cash register is constantly ringing thanks to the heightened viewership of US conservatives and Trump supporters.

But in supporting the WSJ, Murdoch has broken the sometimes fractious relationship with Trump.

How this plays out will be closely watched by other media organisations, including those that have been critical of Trump and then backed away, and those that have stuck to their guns but paid a price.

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