Tucker Carlson Net Worth (Money & Salary)

What is Tucker Carlson’s net worth and salary?

American political commentator, author, and TV personality Tucker Carlson boasts a net worth of $50 million. From 2000 to 2005, he served as a commentator for CNN, and then hosted a show on MSNBC between 2005 and 2008. In 2009, he joined Fox News, where he started hosting “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2016.

On April 24, 2023, Fox News terminated Tucker’s contract. This unexpected move occurred just one week after the network settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million, sending tremors through the media landscape. In a surprising coincidence, Don Lemon was also fired from CNN that same day.

In addition to his television career, Tucker co-founded the news website The Daily Caller and is a published author and columnist. On May 9, 2023, he declared his plans to launch a new show on Twitter, deciding to waive an estimated $25 million owed under his Fox News contract. More information regarding this and other contracts involving Tucker is detailed in the following section.

Salary & Fox Contract

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

Upon transitioning from a weekend correspondent to the prime-time 8 pm weeknight slot previously held by Bill O’Reilly, his salary rose from $2 million to $6 million a year. While this increase appeared substantial, O’Reilly had been commanding $25 million. Tucker quickly surpassed O’Reilly’s ratings significantly.

He continued under that contract until February 2021, when he signed a 3-year extension that raised his salary to $10 million. This extension further included a podcast featuring interviews from his show and original monthly segments branded as “Tucker Carlson Originals.”

Before his abrupt dismissal, Tucker was in negotiations for a new contract extension intended to keep him at Fox until 2029.

What lies ahead for Tucker and Fox?

If Fox intended to avoid paying the remaining value of his contract ($10 million annually for another 2-3 years), they would need to establish that Carlson was dismissed for cause. If proven, they could terminate him without any further financial obligations.

Conversely, Fox may have preferred to retain Tucker under contract to prevent him from joining a competing network during the remaining term of his deal (2-3 years). Essentially, Tucker could have continued earning $10 million annually under his previous agreement, but would have been restricted from appearing on rival networks or news media outlets. Additionally, he likely wouldn’t have been able to host a podcast, produce specials, or publicly criticize his former employer.

And on May 9, 2023, the answer emerged!

Tucker chose to exit his Fox contract and move forward independently with a new show on Twitter. Assuming he was owed $10 million annually for about 2.5 years left on his Fox contract, Tucker opted to forgo $25 million in guaranteed earnings for the chance to be free from his previous deal.

Early Life

Tucker was born in San Francisco but spent most of his childhood in Southern California. His father, Richard Warner Carlson, worked as an LA news anchor and served as an ambassador to the Seychelles. At the age of six, Tucker’s mother left the family. Richard remarried Patricia Caroline Swanson when Tucker was 10; Patricia was immensely wealthy, having inherited from her grandfather, Carl A. Swanson, the founder of the Swanson frozen foods empire.

He attended Trinity

graduated with a degree in history in 1991 from college located in Hartford, Connecticut.

Success

His journalism journey initiated in print with publications like Policy Review and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He then secured positions as a columnist for various periodicals, including Reader’s Digest and New York Magazine. Additionally, he has contributed to several newspapers and magazines such as Esquire, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Daily Beast. Carlson’s television career commenced as a host on the CNN panel discussion show Crossfire, where he predominantly represented the right-wing viewpoint.

During this time, one of his most significant moments occurred during a heated interview with comedian Jon Stewart, which many analysts argue was a direct factor leading to the cancellation of Crossfire shortly thereafter. Subsequently, Carlson obtained roles at both of CNN’s key rivals—MSNBC and, more recently, Fox News.

For many years, Carlson garnered attention not just for his occasionally unconventional conservative beliefs but also for his iconic bow tie, commonly referred to as “the Tucker Carlson look.”

In 2017, Tucker assumed the time slot left vacant by Bill O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News after being fired. Within a few years, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” emerged as the highest-rated program on Fox News, boasting an impressive average nightly viewership of 3.4 million, surpassing the combined audiences of his CNN and MSNBC counterparts.

Tucker shocked the media landscape on April 24, 2023, when he declared that he had departed Fox News, effective immediately, with his final episode airing the previous Friday, April 21.

Book Deal

Around the period of his rise at Fox News, Tucker secured a lucrative book deal reportedly worth $15 million, spanning multiple books. Carlson’s first book, “Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News,” was published in 2003. He followed this with “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution” in 2018, and “The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism” in 2021.

Daily Caller

Tucker co-founded DailyCaller.com, a right-leaning news and opinion site, with Neil Patel in 2010. They designed it to be a conservative alternative to The Huffington Post. In June 2020, Tucker sold his one-third stake to Patel for an undisclosed amount.

Personal Life

Susan Andrews has been Tucker’s spouse since 1991. They first met at the chapel of St. George School, a boarding high school in Middletown, Rhode Island, where they later married. Together, they have four children. Furthermore, Carlson is left-handed and has dyslexia.

For almost ten years, Tucker and his brother Buckley have been involved in a legal dispute concerning their estranged mother’s estate. Their mother, Lisa Vaughn, was the recipient of an oil and gas partnership in rural central California, covering a total of 70,000 acres. At one point, the brothers believed the royalty rights to be worth a relatively modest sum, approximately $125,000 at most. Eventually, they…

It was discovered that the rights had a minimum worth of $2.5 million. Consequently, they initiated a lawsuit against their deceased mother’s estate, which specifically allocated only $1 to each brother. Reports indicate that this lawsuit remains unresolved as of now.

Real Estate

The Carlsons alternate their residence between their home in Florida and a property situated on his family’s Maine estate. In 2011, Tucker and Susan downsized from a $4 million property to one valued at $2 million in the Kent neighborhood of Washington D.C. They sold this home for $2.04 million in November 2017.

In July 2017, they purchased another house in the same Kent neighborhood for $3.895 million. They later listed this property for sale in July 2020, asking for $3.95 million, which was a slight increase. The home sold at the asking price within a month. They reportedly chose to sell after a group of protestors appeared on their driveway and even rang their doorbell.

In early 2020, Tucker acquired a residence on Gasparilla Island in Florida for $2.9 million. By mid-2022, they purchased a second property on Gasparilla for $5.5 million. These homes, located adjacent to each other, are part of a community known as Boca Grande.