Welcome to the first edition of Breaker. We are Lachlan Cartwright and Ravi Somaiya, formerly of… everywhere. If you're receiving this either you had the wisdom to subscribe, or our paths have crossed during our combined 40 years of reporting. If this email has been forwarded to you can subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.

This week we dig into what the very public Murdoch family drama means for Rupert's empire in America, Britain and Australia. His power at the White House, 10 Downing Street and The Lodge (which of course you knew is where the Australian Prime Minister lives) is at stake. 

A Trump-aligned billionaire is in negotiations to buy Manhattan's most exclusive and infamous members' club, Zero Bond, cementing an empire in the heart of the city. 

Christie's first ever sale of AI art opens this week. One of its stars tells us about the vicious campaign anti-AI activists have waged against AI artists and researchers. 

Plus a feud at the New York Times, CAA signs a former Presidential contender, a departure at CBS, Andrew Cuomo's unlikely friend, and penguin sex.

Zero Bond Shrimp Company

(Exclusive.) The owner of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is in negotiations to buy Zero Bond, once one of New York’s most exclusive and infamous private members' clubs, Breaker has learned. 

Tilman Fertitta, who Forbes estimates is worth $11.1bn, bought Keens steakhouse for a reported $30 million late last year, and is set to add the Noho club to a hospitality portfolio that already includes Joe’s Crab Shack and the Rainforest Cafe. Fertitta is also a partner with Mark Birnbaum and Eugene Remm in Catch Hospitality and a co-owner of another downtown hotspot, The Corner Store. 

Under the terms of the proposed deal Fertitta will buy out the original investors. Its current owner, Scott Sartiano and his partner Will Makris will keep their equity and will continue to be involved in running the club, where an annual membership can cost as much as $4,400. People with knowledge of the negotiations say the deal is not yet finalized and multiple foreign buyers have also been circling Zero Bond. As part of his downtown New York hospitality expansion Fertitta is also in talks to purchase Sartiano’s eponymous Soho restaurant. 

Those who know Fertitta describe him as a dealmaker historically animated by an ambition to make it. He started out selling womens' apparel in Texas. Then moved on to vitamins, video game arcades and construction before investing in a chain of Cajun restaurants run by two brothers, Floyd and Bill Landry. 

Fertitta took charge of operations, left at least one partner feeling frozen out, according to Texas Monthly, removed the Cajun spicing from all the dishes, and landed on a formula for squeezing expenses and increasing revenue that formed the foundation for a national empire.

It has also allowed him to purchase a swath of waterfront near Houston, take on one of Texas' oldest philanthropic families and get himself invited to the Clinton White House at least four times. But he seems to have had a chance of heart (or at least party) since. In December Donald Trump nominated Fertitta to be his U.S. ambassador to Italy and has referred to him as his “twin.” 

He is now, by some measures, the wealthiest restaurateur in the world, owns the Houston Rockets, had a distinctly Trump-esque reality show on CNBC and appears in the kind of Texas wealth magazines that describe him as "the very picture of the man who has it all, sitting here in the spoils of his wealth" and praise the interior of his yacht as displaying "forward-looking luxury". 

“Fertitta finds these entrepreneurs that are in the industry in New York that have created something that has buzz and sees if he can leverage that buzz to make money in cities like Dallas or Nashville,” a nightlife insider tells us. 

Zero Bond will debut at the Wynn Las Vegas later this year in what may be the first of many offshoots. Hopefully it won't join Soho House, owned by fellow billionaire Ron Burkle and now open in more than 40 cities around the world, in becoming the Dunkin' Donuts of private members clubs.

It's the latest development in a thriving private club scene downtown. The Twenty Two by Union Square, owned by Navid Mirtorabi and Jamie Reuben, attracts a younger crowd than Zero Bond. At Casa Cipriani Maggio Cipriani, the great-grandson of Giuseppe Cipriani, keeps the barrier to entry tight. They join Chez Margaux in the Meatpacking from Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and The Ned in Nomad also owned by Burkle. Next month Jeff Klein’s Los Angeles fixture San Vicente Bungalows, is set to open in the Jane Hotel. Over the weekend it hosted the afterparty for the SNL50: The Homecoming Concert. A rep for Zero Bond and a rep for Fertitta did not respond to requests for comment. 

What next for the Murdoch empire?

Rupert Murdoch seems to have realised there is one predicament he can't maneuver his way out of. As he approaches 94 next month, he seems to be tying up loose ends. He has tried to reunite his companies News Corp and Fox, has taken emeritus positions at both, leaving his favored son Lachlan as sole chairman, and pursued an acrimonious court battle, named "Project Harmony" to change the voting structure of the family trust and cement Lachlan’s (more conservative) control. 

Reporting from The New York Times and the Atlantic details the smoking familial ruins left in the wake of those moves. But, as one Murdoch insider points out, “the boss never gives up". And an examination of his empire, spread across three nations, shows that just under the surface, things are changing in ways that hint at what is next.  

Australia

Despite appearing at the Super Bowl where he was reunited with former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, to bask in Fox's ratings dominance and robust share price, Lachlan Murdoch usually calls the shots from his Sydney home. (Rumours that he spends his days spearfishing and rock climbing are, we are told, inaccurate. He is motivated by the notion of media baronetcy.) 

The Australian business sold pay TV company Foxtel to billionaire Len Blavatnik’s sports streaming platform DAZN for $2.1bn just days before Christmas. It went unnoticed by most investors, but was seen as a relief. That deal was masterminded by Siobhan McKenna, the chief executive of News Corp’s broadcasting arm, who is viewed by insiders as the “Lachlan whisperer”, and is tipped for bigger things. 

The jewel in the NewsCorp business is REA Group, a digital property business that is a money spinner. Newspapers, including Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and the Adelaide Advertiser, remain a drain on the bottom line but are close to Rupert's heart — the latter is where it all began. The Australian, a daily broadsheet, is performing strongly, as is Sky News Australia. 

And the next generation are following in the family traditions. Last year Lachlan’s son Aidan interned at News.com.au, the country's biggest news website. He rode a motorcycle to work. 

United Kingdom

The Sun, once one of Rupert's prized possessions, a company cash cow and a fearsome political weapon, is down from three million copies sold daily to under 600,000, despite final settlements in the phone hacking scandal. Rupert is still sometimes seen walking the floors of its offices at the Baby Shard in London Bridge accompanied by the chief executive of the UK businesses, Rebekah Brooks. (Her name is often mentioned as a successor to Robert Thomson as overall News Corp chief executive).  

The broadsheet The Times has built a prospering digital business. But a $30 million investment in Piers Morgan to spearhead TalkTV came to nothing. (The channel is now shuttered.) The company reversed course on buying The Spectator, a powerhouse magazine in British conservative politics. And the pool of potential buyers for its own assets is limited by its success in changing British law to prevent foreign buyers acquiring the rival Telegraph newspapers. 

United States 

Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, remains a phenomenal business. But many viewed Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker’s arrival in 2023 as an attempt to give the paper a glossy front end while cost cutting for a potential sale.

It is, said Claire Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis and a long time Murdoch observer, "big enough to be a considerable interest to a private equity owner," with "a very high degree of authority and stickiness with its subscription base.” It is underpinned by an enviable business-to-business division that was revitalised by former Dow Jones chief executive Will Lewis and his replacement Almar Latour. 

Meanwhile, rumors of Fox News' demise were greatly exaggerated. Under chief executive Suzanne Scott, the settlement with the voting machines company Dominion is a distant memory. Advertisers are returning in droves, ratings are up and more than a dozen former Fox News employees or contributors serve in influential roles in the Trump administration. Elon Musk and the Mercer family are seen as potential buyers were the network be put up for sale. 

The next Murdoch generation will now also play a significant role. Wendi Deng’s two daughters, Grace and Chloe, are now adults. Elizabeth and Prudence both have three children, Lachlan and James two. It leaves potential for divisions and factions to multiply, with knock-on complexities for the Murdoch family even after the trust expires in 2030. 

None of it will matter if, as one analyst told us, the companies continue to be profitable. “The Murdochs are really good at making people money. And really that is all that matters.”

“Careful reader”

(Exclusive.) On October 24 last year a bombshell investigation appeared on the front page of the New York Times, headlined ‘What Drugmakers Did Not Tell Volunteers in Alzheimer’s Trials.’ The story, by Walt Bogdanich, who has won the Pulitzer Prize three times, and Carson Kessler, reported those who ran drug trials were withholding potentially vital information from participants.

For weeks prior to publication one of the Times’ top health reporters, Pam Belluck, had been raising fierce objections about the story, we have learned. Belluck, who has been on the Times’ health desk since 2009 (and has also won a Pulitzer), complained about the substance of the investigation in multiple memos. 

When the story was published journalists at the Times noted a series of critical comments, posted under the username “Careful reader”, that echoed the complaints Belluck had been making. 

When editors at The Times pulled the metadata to find out more about “careful reader”, they found that the commentator was William Dedman, another investigative reporter, who is married to Belluck. When Times bosses confronted Belluck about her husband's careful reading she denied all knowledge or involvement in the posts. 

“It's not how good colleagues should work together,” Bogdanich told us. “I was offended by it and my editors were concerned how it was handled by her. She says she had no involvement with her husband and knows nothing about it. I don't believe that for one second.”

Bogdanich says he feels Belluck should have been reprimanded. “I don't know what her motive was. Jealousy? She thought she was the queen of the land and no one could come on her beat. She did not behave honorably or properly.”

Belluck and Dedman did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Times declined to comment. 

AI artists face wave of activism

AI is basically Buffalo Bill doing an unsettling impression of human noises in The Silence of the Lambs. But that has not stopped people who are susceptible to marketing and James Cameron movies from seeing it as an apocalypic threat to humanity. 

A small group of anti-AI activists has been waging a campaign they see as existential against some of the artists who are featured in Christie's sale of AI art, which it says is the first ever by a major auction house, opening this week. Via WhatsApp, one of those artists, Mat Dryhurst, told us that his run-ins with the group have been worthy of a documentary-series. 

"All of this is very new," he said, "which is what makes it so interesting and worthy of art and ideas." He feels for those who are afraid. "Art and art labor is changing for good and I get it." But, he added, bullying artists into silence is not the way.

Roark to depart CBS

(Exclusive.) A top CBS News executive is set to depart the network after just six months in her role, two people familiar with the matter tell us. Adrienne Roark, who leads all news gathering for CBS News and stations is expected to join TEGNA in a senior role. It comes at a tumultuous moment for CBS News. Its flagship current affairs show 60 Minutes is locked in litigation with Donald Trump over the network’s editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. Roark did not respond to a request for comment and a representative for CBS News declined to comment.

CAA’nt touch this

(Exclusive.) Hollywood/everything agency CAA has signed Kamala Harris as a client. Harris joins Joe Biden and the Obamas’ media company on the agency’s roster. CAA declined to comment.

Reading list

A zoological study of Adélie penguins that was so shocking it was suppressed for a century (scroll to page six).

The mathematics of moving a sofa into your apartment: 

The MoMA catalogue for an exhibition of machine art in 1934 (which solved the entire issue of AI art, kind-of). 

Undercover sting, working-titled "UNDERCOVERJEW", backfires.

Kicker

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