Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch received the COVID-19 vaccination.
Murdoch, the 89-year-old owner of Fox News’s parent company, received the first round of the vaccine in Henley, Oxfordshire, on Wednesday evening, according to the Guardian. He “had the vaccine at his local GP’s surgery after he received a call saying he was eligible,” said a statement from a News Corp representative.
Murdoch, whose net worth is greater than $7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, also urged other people to get the vaccine. He has been isolating at his home near Henley for most of the year with his wife, Jerry Hall Murdoch.
“I would like to thank the keyworkers and the NHS staff who have worked so hard throughout the pandemic, and the amazing scientists who have made this vaccine possible. I strongly encourage people around the world to get the vaccine as it becomes available,” Murdoch said.
Murdoch’s praise of the vaccine and his decision to receive it appear to stand in contrast with the views of at least one host at Fox News. On Thursday, Tucker Carlson railed against the vaccine rollout, saying it “feels false” and was “too slick.”
“So, how are the rest of us supposed to respond to a marketing campaign like this? Well, nervously,” Carlson said. “Even if you are strongly supportive of vaccines, and we are, even if you recognize how many millions of lives have been saved over the past 50 years by vaccines, and we do, it all seems a bit much. It feels false because it is. It’s too slick.”
There have been more than 75 million COVID-19 cases internationally, which have resulted in more than 1.6 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker.
