Billionaire media bets intensify as new Warren Buffett investment targets The New York Times

After years of retreat from newspapers, a fresh Warren Buffett investment in The New York Times signals a striking reversal for one of America’s most influential media skeptics.

Berkshire Hathaway returns to the newsroom with a $351.7 million stake

Just five years after Berkshire Hathaway sold all 31 of its newspapers and Warren Buffett famously called the industry “toast,” the conglomerate has quietly come back to legacy media. A quarterly update filed with the SEC revealed that Berkshire committed $351.7 million to shares of The New York Times, rejoining a small club of billionaire-backed news institutions.

Buffett, the legendary “Oracle of Omaha,” purchased 5.07 million shares in the 175-year-old paper at the end of 2025. The move coincided with his decision to step down as CEO of Berkshire after leading the company for nearly six decades. Moreover, the purchase marks a clear shift from his previous skepticism about newspapers’ long-term prospects.

“It is a full circle moment for Berkshire Hathaway in reinvesting in news and a huge vote of confidence by Berkshire in the business strategy of The New York Times,” said Tim Franklin, professor and chair of local news at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. His comments highlight how Buffett’s change in stance could be interpreted as an endorsement of the paper’s subscription-first digital model.

Billionaires deepen their footprint in traditional media

The 95-year-old investor, whose fortune stands at an eye-watering $149 billion, is far from alone in putting serious money into journalism. He joins a legion of ultra-wealthy businessmen who are pouring millions into legacy outlets to retain influence in a rapidly digitizing information economy. However, the financial outcomes of these ventures have been mixed over the past decade.

Whether it is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s takeover of The Washington Post for $250 million, or Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his purchase of Time magazine, the pattern is clear. The rich are willing to carve off slices of their fortunes to secure a foothold in national and global news. In this context, the New York Times investment sits squarely within a broader trend of billionaire media patronage.

High-profile takeovers from Bezos to Murdoch

Bezos famously bought The Washington Post in 2013 for a quarter of a billion dollars, reshaping the strategy of the 148-year-old newspaper. Yet, after a decade marked by both strong digital growth and recent turbulence, the Post endured a major setback earlier this month, cutting roughly a third of its staff. That said, its owner has so far continued to back the organization amid financial pressure.

Just days after Bezos entered the industry, another billionaire stepped in: John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, acquired The Boston Globe for $70 million. Around the same era, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch continued to expand his extensive news empire. The former CEO of 21st Century Fox, whose family fortune is estimated at nearly $19 billion, controls influential TV channel Fox News through his media holdings.

Murdoch’s reach extends deep into print and digital publishing as well. His son, Lachlan Murdoch, chairs News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal alongside outlets including The Times of London and the New York Post. Moreover, this complex network underscores how legacy brands often rely on billionaire patrons to navigate audience fragmentation and advertising declines.

Carlos Slim and another deep-pocketed Times backer

Alongside Buffett, The New York Times has long had another prominent billionaire supporter: telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helú, the richest man in Mexico. He has invested millions of dollars into the publication over the years. In early 2015, his position peaked when he became the paper’s largest single investor, holding nearly 17% of the brand at that time.

That stake made Slim a critical financial backer during a period when the Times was rapidly shifting from print-heavy revenues to a digital subscription model. However, his involvement also illustrated how strategic capital from ultra-wealthy individuals can help shield heritage news organizations while they overhaul their business structures.

From “toast” to turnaround: Buffett’s changing view on newspapers

The new position in The New York Times is especially striking because it reverses Buffett’s well-documented retreat from newspapers. His latest move, interpreted by some as a fresh berkshire hathaway investment endorsement of news, contrasts sharply with his exit from the sector just a few years earlier. Moreover, it raises questions about how he now assesses the digital-era prospects of leading media brands.

In 2020, Berkshire Hathaway sold all of its newspaper holdings to Lee Enterprises for $140 million. The deal included 31 papers across 10 states, such as the Omaha World-Herald and The Buffalo News. At the time, Buffett acknowledged a longstanding affection for the industry but emphasized that he had grown wary of structural decline in print advertising and local circulation.

He observed that falling ad revenue had transformed the newspaper business “from monopoly to franchise to competitive,” a trajectory he believed would leave many publications “toast.” Despite that harsh assessment, he noted that Berkshire had acquired its papers at what he considered “reasonable” prices, softening the financial impact of the sale. However, for many observers, his exit seemed to signal the end of an era.

Investors who closely track his holdings treated the 2020 sale as a grim omen for legacy print. Analysts concluded that Buffett doubted the traditional newspaper model could ever fully recover its former profitability or dominance. Yet the latest Warren Buffett investment in The New York Times, coming as the media world becomes even more digital and subscription-driven, suggests that at least some elite investors still see upside in storied news brands.

Overall, the growing list of billionaires behind major outlets—from Bezos and Henry to Murdoch, Slim, and now Buffett—indicates that heritage publications remain strategically valuable, even in a fractured information market. While the economics of print may never return to their peak, sustained capital and evolving digital strategies could ensure that influential newspapers continue to shape public debate for years to come.