Yahoo Movies Rupert Murdoch Set to Join Moguls at Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley Conference
SUN VALLEY, Idaho — Rupert Murdoch will attend Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley conference this week, Variety has confirmed.
The annual event colloquially known as “summer camp for billionaires” kicks off as usual on July 5 at the Sun Valley Lodge in the titular Idaho resort town. Murdoch, 91, arrived on site during the July 4th holiday on Monday, according to a source familiar with the matter, two days after the Fox Corp. and News Corp. baron attended granddaughter Charlotte Freud’s wedding to rapper Lukey Storey in the U.K.
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Murdoch’s decision to come to the Sun Valley retreat — an event he has attend numerous times over the years — is an interesting surprise, as his name was not among those on the list of invite-only Sun Valley guests obtained by Variety last month.
However, Murdoch’s sons James Murdoch, CEO of Lupa Systems, and Lachlan Murdoch, the current CEO of Fox Corp., were both already expected to attend. The two brothers are seemingly on very different sides of the political aisle these days, with James, having left the family business at Fox, moving toward the center and Lachlan, now firmly ensconced at the top at Fox Corp., standing behind Fox News amid ever-escalating criticism of its involvement with former President Donald Trump.
Rupert Murdoch’s choice to attend Sun Valley also comes amid a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Fox Corp led by Dominion Voting Systems, and on the heels of the announcement of Murdoch’s divorce from Jerry Hall. Murdoch and the 65-year-old model were married in 2016, marking Murdoch’s fourth marriage. Murdoch and Hall attended Sun Valley together in 2018.
Murdoch was behind the sale of most of 21st Century Fox to the Walt Disney Co. in 2019 in a deal valued at $71.3 billion. At present he is chairman of Fox Corp., a publicly traded entity that owns Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations, Fox News, Fox Business and Fox Sports. Through News Corp., the publishing empire at which he remains executive chairman, Murdoch controls The Wall Street Journal, The Sun and book publisher HarperCollins.
Matt Donnelly contributed to this story.
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