Tucker Carlson Net Worth (Money & Salary)

What is Tucker Carlson’s net worth and salary?

With a net worth of $50 million, Tucker Carlson is an American political commentator, author, and TV personality. He served as a CNN commentator from 2000 until 2005 and hosted a show on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008. In 2009, he joined Fox News, where he began hosting the nightly talk show titled “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2016.

Tucker was dismissed from Fox News on April 24, 2023, a development that shocked the media industry, occurring just a week after Fox settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. Coincidentally, Don Lemon was also abruptly let go from CNN that same day.

Apart from television, Tucker co-founded the website The Daily Caller and is a published author and columnist. On May 9, 2023, he revealed plans to launch a new show on Twitter, choosing to forfeit approximately $25 million owed to him from his Fox News contract. Further details regarding his contracts can be found in the following section.

Salary & Fox Contract

At the time of his firing, Tucker Carlson’s peak salary at Fox was $10 million annually.

When he transitioned from being a weekend correspondent to taking over Bill O’Reilly’s former prime-time slot at 8 pm, his salary rose from $2 million to $6 million each year. While this increase may seem substantial, it paled in comparison to O’Reilly’s $25 million salary. Nonetheless, Tucker began to significantly outperform O’Reilly in terms of ratings.

He remained under that contract until February 2021, at which point he signed a three-year extension that raised his salary to $10 million. This extension also included a podcast featuring interviews from his show and monthly original content under the brand “Tucker Carlson Originals.”

In the months leading up to his unexpected termination, Tucker was negotiating a new contract extension that would have extended his stay at Fox until 2029.

What lies ahead for Tucker and Fox?

To avoid paying the remainder of his contract ($10 million per year for another 2-3 years), Fox would have needed to demonstrate that Carlson was let go for cause. If they could establish this, it would allow them to terminate Carlson without any further financial obligation.

Conversely, Fox might have preferred to retain Tucker under contract to prevent him from joining a competing network during the remainder of his deal (2-3 years). Essentially, Tucker could have continued to earn $10 million per year under his existing contract, but he would not be allowed to appear on any rival networks or news outlets. Additionally, he likely wouldn’t have been permitted to host a podcast, produce specials, or publicly criticize his former employer.

Then, on May 9, 2023, the situation was clarified!

Tucker chose to exit his Fox contract and pursue an independent path by launching a new show on Twitter. Assuming he was owed $10 million annually for the nearly 2.5 years remaining on his Fox contract, he opted to give up $25 million in assured earnings to be released from his previous agreement.

Early Life

Tucker was born in San Francisco but spent the majority of his upbringing in Southern California. His father, Richard Warner Carlson, was an LA news anchor and ambassador to the Seychelles. When Tucker was only six years old, his mother left the family. Richard married Patricia Caroline Swanson when Tucker was 10. Patricia was exceptionally wealthy, having inherited her fortune from her grandfather, Carl A. Swanson, founder of the Swanson frozen foods company.

He attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he graduated with

A degree in history was obtained in 1991.

Success

The journey of his journalism career commenced in print at various publications, including Policy Review and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Subsequently, he secured positions as a columnist for magazines such as Reader’s Digest and New York Magazine. He has also contributed to newspapers and magazines like Esquire, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Daily Beast. Carlson’s television career began as a host on CNN’s panel discussion program, Crossfire, where he typically represented the right-wing perspective.

During this time, one of his most notable moments was a heated interview with comedian Jon Stewart, which many analysts speculate was a key factor leading to Crossfire’s cancellation shortly thereafter. Since that period, Carlson has been employed by CNN’s major competitors, MSNBC, and most recently, Fox News.

For numerous years, Carlson gained recognition not just for his occasionally eccentric conservative viewpoints but also for his iconic bow tie, often described as “the Tucker Carlson look.”

In 2017, Tucker stepped into the time slot left vacant by Bill O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News. Within a few years, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” became the highest-rated program on Fox News by a considerable margin. Garnering an average nightly audience of 3.4 million viewers, Tucker outperformed the combined viewership of his counterparts from CNN and MSNBC.

On April 24, 2023, the media was taken aback when Tucker announced his immediate departure from Fox News, revealing that his final broadcast had occurred the previous Friday, April 21.

Book Deal

At the time of his rise at Fox News, Tucker entered into a lucrative book deal reported to be valued at $15 million, encompassing several titles. His book “Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News” was published in 2003. In 2018, he released “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution,” followed by “The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism” in 2021.

Daily Caller

In 2010, Tucker, alongside Neil Patel, co-founded DailyCaller.com, a right-leaning news and opinion platform. They marketed it as a conservative alternative to The Huffington Post. In June 2020, Tucker sold his one-third share to Patel for an undisclosed sum.

Personal Life

Tucker has been wed to Susan Andrews since 1991, having met and subsequently married at the chapel of St. George School, a boarding high school located in Middletown, Rhode Island. Together, they have four children. Carlson is both left-handed and dyslexic.

For almost a decade, a lawsuit involving Tucker and his brother Buckley has revolved around their estranged mother’s estate. Their mother, Lisa Vaughn, was the beneficiary of an oil and gas partnership in rural central California, covering a total of 70,000 acres. Initially, the brothers believed the royalty rights were valued at a relatively trivial amount — perhaps $125,000 at most. They later discovered that the rights were actually worth a minimum of $2.5 million.

The estate of their late mother was sued by them, which specifically allotted each brother a mere $1. As of the time of this writing, that lawsuit is reportedly still unresolved.

Real Estate

Time for the Carlsons is divided between their residence in Florida and a home on his family’s property in Maine. In 2011, Tucker and Susan downsized from a $4 million property to a $2 million house situated in the Kent neighborhood of Washington D.C. This house was sold by them for $2.04 million in November 2017.

A house in the same Kent neighborhood was purchased by them in July 2017 for $3.895 million. In July 2020, they listed this new home for sale at $3.95 million, reflecting a slight increase. They successfully sold the house within a month at the asking price. Reportedly, they made the decision to sell after a group of protestors approached their driveway and rang the doorbell.

In early 2020, a home on Gasparilla Island in Florida was bought by Tucker for $2.9 million. They acquired a second home on Gasparilla in mid-2022 for $5.5 million. These properties, which are adjacent to one another, are located within a community known as Boca Grande.