Rupert Murdoch health concerns grow after billionaire media mogul suffers bout of pneumonia

Rupert Murdoch, 88, health concerns grow after billionaire media mogul suffers bout of pneumonia, and then picks up 600,000 shares of Fox Corp for $21 MILLION

  • Rupert Murdoch reportedly got pneumonia as a result of the flu last month and had to go to a hospital in California, reports CNN
  • He is now recovering, and records obtained by DailyMail.com show that his plane was in Washington DC on June 13 and 14, which is Trump’s birthday 

Rupert Murdoch was reportedly sent to the hospital with a bout of pneumonia last month. 

Multiple sources told CNN that the billionaire chairman of Fox Corp was in Los Angeles at the time, meaning it would have happened some time after May 15, which is when Murdoch left New York and headed out to California. 

Flight records obtained by DailyMail.com show that the 88-year-old’s plane also made its way to Washington DC on June 13 before flying out the next day, which is President Trump’s birthday. 

At that same time, Murdoch bought 600,000 shares of Fox Corp. for $20.56 million.

His son, James Murdoch, also skipped the annual shareholders meeting at Tesla.

The board member’s signature is missing from the documents that were filed with the SEC  from the June 12 event. 

Fox Corp has yet to respond to a request for comment. 

Health fears: Rupert Murdoch (above in 2013) reportedly suffered a bout of pneumonia last month 

This illness comes 18 months after Murdoch suffered a nighttime fall that he tried to downplay to staff. 

Murdoch and his fourth wife Jerry Hall were guests on his son Lachlan’s yacht Sarrisa when the billionaire media mogul fell while making his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He was then airlifted from the Caribbean to a hospital in Los Angeles with broken vertebrae and a spinal hematoma.

Immediate surgery was required for the vertebrae, while the hematoma threatened to leave him paralyzed or possibly even killed the head of News Corp.

Hall was ‘in a panic’ according to The New York Times,  and so concerned about her husband’s situation that she made the decision to call his adult children and tell them to come to Los Angeles immediately, and be prepared to make peace with their father.

It would be an emotional moment for any family, but was a bit more charged for the Murdochs as the death of their patriarch would leave a vacancy at the top of the family’s multibillion dollar empire – and he had never named an heir.

Son Lachlan held the highest position in the family company, but it was James who had been floated as the heir in the months before the fall. There was also their sister Elisabeth, who manage to find success striking out on her own in the emerging app-based market.

The Times reports that Murdoch has previously suffered two bad falls prior to the incident on Lachlan’s yacht.

Murdoch had fallen while exiting a stage and another time tripped on the carpet of a hotel in San Francisco, but in both cases the family managed to prevent the news from leaking to the press.

His four oldest children soon found themselves at Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center after that 2018 fall, travelling from London, New York and the Caribbean to be at their father’s bedside.

The surgery was a success and after seeing his children around his bed, Murdoch joked that he had no idea how serious his situation was at the time until he saw the four in his hospital room.  



Read more at DailyMail.co.uk