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Robert Thomson, a close ally of Rupert Murdoch and CEO of the media titan’s News Corp, said the initial “turmoil” of Donald Trump‘s time in the White House is certain to calm down in the coming months.
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, Thomson said the whirlwind early weeks of Trump’s second term have unfolded at a pace that cannot be sustained. He pointed to Monday’s negative reaction to the president’s vow to initiate previously shelved tariffs against Canada and Mexico, calling it a check on the president’s impulsiveness.
The “tariff turmoil” and other sources of “uncertainty” are not “what Chairman Mao used to call a ‘permanent revolution,'” Thomson said. “This is not a permanent revolution.”
Instead, the tariffs are “transactional” measures, the exec reasoned, and “there’s a certain method to the madness. If that’s the case, then in six to nine months’ time, for our businesses and for any business operating in the States or for any global company contemplating investment, the scenario will be somewhat different” than the current one.
News Corp’s media portfolio includes The Wall Street Journal, whose recent editorials have at times directly challenged Trump, calling his tariff plan a step toward “the dumbest trade war in history.” The news outlet has also clashed with Trump advisor Elon Musk after publishing investigative articles about his leadership of Tesla and other companies as well as his oversight of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Other parts of Murdoch’s media empire, especially Fox News at sister entity Fox Corp., have remained ardently supportive of Trump. Over the decade of Trump emerging as a prominent figure in presidential politics, Murdoch’s relationship with him has fluctuated noticeably, but has recently landed in a generally pragmatic place. Thomson himself, during a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts last month, hailed Trump’s election win for lifting the “yoke of woke” from U.S. businesses.
Thomson at the Morgan Stanley event predicted that Corporate America would be able to ride out the storm.
“If you were going in and wanting to disrupt, you would do it at the front end,” he said. “Then hopefully, and obviously the goal, is to change in terms of trade, to reduce the federal bureaucracy spend, etc. etc. Which is why, essentially DOGE has a limited timeline. But we’re in the midst of the early Trump 2 turmoil. The optimistic interpretation is, it’s purposeful turbulence.”
With Trump sensitive to the stock market and consumer price inflation data, “those two things themselves provide a natural discipline,” Thomson argued. “But there’s also no doubt that in the end he wants to be seen as a successful president. And a successful president presiding over four years of chaos is not a successful president. So, I would try to contextualize the upheaval in which we find ourselves. I’m of the more optimistic school, could be proved wrong.”
