Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch says that former president Donald Trump needs to move on from claims that he actually won the 2020 election so that conservatives can focus on future policy.
The media magnate, 90, made the suggestion on Wednesday during an annual shareholders' meeting for News Corp, which oversees the Wall Street Journal, The Sun and the book publisher HarperCollins.
Murdoch also owns Fox News, a channel that has supported Trump and his claims, through the Fox Corporation.
'The current American political debate is profound, whether about education or welfare or economic opportunity,' Murdoch said, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
'It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.'
Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, says Donald Trump is 'focused on the past' and needs to move on from the 2020 election. Above, the pair at Trump's golf course in Scotland in 2016
Murdoch, 90, believes conservatives should focus on the 'contest to define the future'
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
As recently as last month, he slammed a congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, in which his supporters sought to prevent Congress from certifying the election results for Joe Biden.
'The Unselect Committee of partisan Democrats, and two very weak and pathetic RINOs, should come to the conclusion after spending many millions of dollars, that the real insurrection happened on November 3rd, the Presidential Election, not on January 6th—which was a day of protesting the Fake Election results,' he said in a statement.
The committee has since gone on to subpoena close allies, including former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was arrested on two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to sit down with lawmakers but was released without bail on Monday.
That same day, Trump ally Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, said that Trump 'incited' the riot with his rhetoric.
'I think everything that he was saying from election night forward incited people to that level of anger,' the former New Jersey governor told CNN's Dana Bash Monday night.
Trump and Murdoch, the Australian-born media tycoon, forged a friendship during his time in the White House. Fox News, the former president's favorite news network and one of Murdoch's signature products, regularly parroted his lines and ideas.
Murdoch's comments were tweeted by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie admitted that Trump's rhetoric from Election Day to January 6 'incited people to that level of anger,' referring to the January 6 Capitol riot
Murdoch often bypassed Trump's chief of staff when he called the White House, effectively giving him a direct line to the president, according to the New York Times.
On Wednesday, he also criticized Big Tech companies for allegedly silencing conservative voices and not paying for the content of online publishers.
So far, Murdoch has gotten Google, Apple and Facebook to pay for News Corp-owned content featured on their websites.
'For many years our company has been leading the global debate about Big Digital,' Murdoch said, according to Reuters.
Trump continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even as his allies are subpoenaed by a Congressional panel investigating his supporters' Jan. 6 Capitol riot
Trump and Murdoch , above at a ceremony in New York in May 2017, spoke often during Trump's first year in the White House. Murdoch also owns Trump's favorite station Fox News
'What we have seen in the past few weeks about the practices at Facebook and Google surely reinforces the need for significant reform,' he added, alluding to recent revelations by a former Facebook employee dubbed the 'Facebook Papers.'
He also cited a federal lawsuit, filed by 10 state attorneys general last year, accusing Google of using its 'monopolistic power' to control the price of online ads, according to ABC News.
'Let us be very clear about the consequences of that digital ad market manipulation,' said Murdoch.
'Obviously, publishers have been materially damaged, but companies have also been overcharged for their advertising, and consumers have thus paid too much for products.'
In April, Associated Newspapers Ltd. and Mail Media In - the parent company of DailyMail.com and MailOnline - sued Google for similar reasons, accusing the tech giant of manipulating ad auctions and hiding its articles in search results.
'The idea falsely promoted by the platforms that algorithms are somehow objective and solely scientific is complete nonsense,' Murdoch said.
'Algorithms are subjective and they can be manipulated by people to kill competition, damage other people, publishers and businesses.'
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