Robert Thomson. If you follow the media world even a little bit, you've definitely heard the name. He isn't your typical polished, Ivy League executive who speaks in boring corporate riddles. Far from it. This is the man who recently called big tech companies "content counterfeiters" and basically told the AI industry that if they’re using "stolen property" to train their models, News Corp is coming for them.
Honestly, it’s refreshing.
In an era where most CEOs are terrified of offending Silicon Valley, Robert Thomson News Corp leader since 2013, has turned "suing and wooing" into a high-stakes art form. And it's working. While other media giants are crumbling or begging for scraps, News Corp just extended Thomson's contract through 2030.
The Australian "Bush Lad" at the Top
Before he was running a global empire from Midtown Manhattan, Thomson was a "bush lad" from Torrumbarry, Victoria. He didn’t start with a silver spoon. He started as a copyboy at The Herald in Melbourne back in 1979.
Think about that for a second.
He went from fetching coffee and running paper proofs to being the first non-British editor of The Times of London. Then he took over The Wall Street Journal. Now, he's the guy Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch trust to steer the entire ship. It’s a wild trajectory. You don't get there by being timid.
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Thomson's background as a foreign correspondent in Beijing and Tokyo gave him a perspective most suits lack. He saw the "bubble economy" in Japan burst. He reported on the Tiananmen Square protests. He's fluent in Mandarin and Japanese. This isn't just a guy who looks at spreadsheets; he’s a guy who understands how the world actually turns.
What Robert Thomson News Corp Strategy Really Looks Like
A lot of people think News Corp is just about newspapers. That’s a mistake. Under Thomson, the company has undergone a massive, almost quiet transformation.
Basically, he stopped relying on the "cyclical" nature of advertising. You know, that thing where if the economy dips, your revenue vanishes? Yeah, he hated that. So he leaned hard into digital subscriptions and real estate services.
Look at the numbers.
In 2014, digital revenue was around 20%.
By 2024? It hit 50%.
The most profitable part of the whole company now isn’t even the newspapers—it’s Dow Jones (which includes the WSJ) and Digital Real Estate Services like REA Group. He’s turned a legacy print business into a data and professional services powerhouse. In 2025, News Corp reported record profitability, with net income jumping 71% to $648 million.
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The "Wooing and Suing" of AI
This is where it gets interesting. While the New York Times went straight for the jugular with a massive lawsuit against OpenAI, Thomson took a different path. He calls it "courtship over courtrooms"—at least at first.
He managed to secure a landmark licensing deal with OpenAI that is reportedly worth over $250 million over five years. He’s making the "tech tapeworms"—his words, not mine—finally pay for the journalism they’ve been scraping for free for decades.
But don't think he's gone soft.
In late 2025, he warned other AI companies that News Corp would "pursue you relentlessly" if they didn't respect intellectual property. He’s essentially the bouncer of the internet, making sure the people who actually write the stories get paid when a chatbot spits them back out.
Why People Get Him Wrong
Most critics try to pigeonhole Thomson as just a "Murdoch loyalist." That’s too simple. While he’s definitely close to the family, his editorial record shows he’s more interested in quality and "provenance" than pure partisanship.
When he took over The Times, people thought he'd turn it into a mouthpiece. Instead, he grew the audience from 1 million to 13 million monthly users. He focused on making the Wall Street Journal a "paper of news, not a paper of opinions" (though the editorial page might disagree).
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He’s obsessed with what he calls the "morass of mediocrity." He believes that in a world full of AI-generated garbage, people will eventually crave—and pay for—real, verified facts.
Actionable Insights: What We Can Learn from the Thomson Playbook
If you’re running a business or even just managing your own career, there are a few "Thomson-isms" that actually matter:
- Diversify before you have to: He didn't wait for print to die before moving into digital real estate and professional data. He moved when print was still "okay."
- Don't be a victim: His quote "There’s no virtue in victimhood" is something every creator should live by. Don't just complain about the algorithm; figure out how to make the platform pay you.
- IP is everything: Whether you're a writer, a designer, or a coder, your work has value. Don't let others "vandalize your virtuosity" by giving it away for free.
- Embrace the "Pivot": News Corp sold Foxtel to DAZN recently because the old pay-TV model was dragging them down. Knowing when to cut a legacy asset is just as important as knowing what to buy.
Robert Thomson has been extended as CEO until June 2030 for a reason. He’s one of the few legacy media leaders who isn't just surviving the digital age—he's actually winning it. He’s managed to keep the lights on and the profits up by treating journalism like the high-value asset it is, rather than a dying hobby.
Expect more "suing and wooing" in the years to come. Because if there's one thing we know about the guy from Torrumbarry, it's that he isn't going to let Big Tech have the last word.