News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch told investors on a conference call Wednesday that the company’s board wants him to stay as chairman and chief executive officer, Bloomberg reports.
Murdoch added that if he weren’t able to do the job, Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey would succeed him.
“I hope the job won’t be open in the near future,” Murdoch said. “Chase is my partner if anything happened to me. I’m sure he’d get it immediately if I run under a bus.”
In the question-and-answer section of the call, Murdoch didn’t directly say whether his son James, 38, is in line to eventually take the job. But he noted, “Chase and I have full confidence in James.”
Murdoch, 80, made the comments after the company released its fiscal fourth-quarter results. Some investors have asked News Corp. to separate the jobs of chairman and CEO in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal in the U.K.
Investors will hear what the want to hear, and more fools them. The rest of us want Murdoch destroyed.