After dinner and a few drinks last night, a very refreshed Rupert Murdoch stopped by for a chat outside the bar at the Sun Valley Lodge and revealed that he did not think Microsoft would succeed in buying Yahoo.“They’re not going to do a deal,” he said. “There’s bad personal feelings…in six months [Microsoft] will walk away.”
It has been suggested that News Corporation is prepared to swap its MySpace social network for a stake in Yahoo but Mr Murdoch said any involvement by the company in the takeover saga was “not likely”.
With his sons James and Lachlan chatting on the terrace outside, Mr Murdoch then talked about his experience at a conference session earlier that day. He had attended a presentation given by Niall Fitzgerald, the deputy chairman of Thomson Reuters, and had taken exception to Mr Fitzgerald’s comments about the US.
Mr Fitzgerald had suggested that the US was viewed negatively around the world because of foreign policy mistakes. “People in Europe forget that the US saved them from two world wars, from Nazism, communism…and America never asked for a penny.”
The conversation turned to the US election and Mr Murdoch revealed an admiration for Barack Obama. The New York Post, which is owned by News Corporation, has already endorsed the Democratic candidate.
“There’s a sliver of hope that America could be great again under Obama,” he said, adding: “I met him and was impressed. But you know what I’m like…I get to meet them for an hour and I’m seduced.”
