Michael Wolff

Best selling author Michael Wolff on Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump and the 2024 presidential election.

Michael Wolff has written three books about Donald Trump and two about Rupert Murdoch since 2008. The first of three Trump books, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” was a New York Times number one best seller and sold more copies than any other Trump book. His other two Trump Books, “Siege” (2019) and “Landslide” (2021) also tapped into the Trump fascination. Michael Wolff’s most recent publication (2023) is the story of Rupert Murdoch, his family, and the future of Fox News having sold part of the company to The Walt Disney Co. It followed up the Murdoch biography, “The Man Who Owns the News”( 2008) in which he had been given unprecedented access to Rupert Murdoch.

Wolff also wrote “Burn Rate,” (1998) the story of his experience in the dotcom world and what happened to his internet company, Wolff New Media. In other new media and internet entrepreneurial efforts, Wolff helped create a news aggregate website, Newser, in 2007. Earlier, after being a columnist for “New York Magazine,” for six years, Michael Wolff helped put together a syndicate of well known New Yorkers that was unsuccessful in buying the magazine.

Wolff still writes freelance magazine articles for newspapers and magazines on subjects including media, politics, and money but other topics as well. As many know, media, politics and money seem to cut through many subjects. In addition to best sellers, Michael Wolff has won two National Magazine Awards since he began writing before his graduation from Columbia University in 1975.

He has also received some criticism questioning his facts and sources. In our conversation, I asked if facts sometime get in the way, or if he was less certain about facts but more clear about impressions.

This is his response: 

“No. Well, no, I don't think so. I mean, I think that's, I'm always kind of accused of this. He made this up, or his sources are unreliable, or he's not revealing his sources. I just do a different thing than the New York Times does or the newspaper reporters do. And it used to be that there were quite a lot of people who did what I do, and they were magazine writers. And I've spent most of my career as a magazine writer. And that was a different kind of reporting than the New York Times does. And I have nothing against the New York Times. I think it's incredibly valuable, and it's great what they do, but it's not the only way to look at something.”

Michael Wolff lives with his second wife, Victoria Floethe, and their two children in Manhattan and Long Island.