News Corp blasts AI orgs over Trump book ‘theft’

Hal Crawford

May 12, 2025 9:31

News Corp has used a quarterly earnings call to blast AI companies for stealing content, pointing out that US President Donald Trump’s books have been ingested for LLM training.

The broadside by News Corp CEO Robert Thomson came as the multinational media company reported steady overall revenue (up 1% YOY to US$2.01 billion) and a total segment EBITDA result up 12% (to US$290 million). News Corp segment EBITDA is simply earnings before interest/taxes/depreciation of each of its business verticals added together.

A rare first edition of The Art of the Deal

In prepared remarks in the earnings call Friday night Australian time, Thomson made a reference that seemed designed to grab the attention of the US president.

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Hal Crawford

Crawford has worked across news media over a 30-year career, including running Ninemsn editorial in Sydney (editor-in-chief and publisher) and the TV3 newsroom in Auckland (chief news officer).

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News Corp blasts AI orgs over Trump book ‘theft’

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