Ted Turner, the brash entrepreneur who led a media and philanthropy empire that included founding groundbreaking news network CNN, has died, the network reported on Wednesday. He was 87.
No cause of death was given. In 2018, Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease.
Who was Ted Turner?
Turner bought his first television station in 1970 and over time became one of the most powerful figures in US media, at one time even owning the MGM/United Artists movie studio.
He also was one of the world’s leading environmentalists, one of the largest land owners in the United States, and a major philanthropist, giving $1 billion to the United Nations.
US President Donald Trump has paid tribute to Turner on his TruthSocial platform, but couldn’t resist taking a swipe at CNN, a station the president has long perceived as hostile to him.
President Donald J. Trump on the passing of Ted Turner: pic.twitter.com/OwIwl58CRT
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 6, 2026“The new ownership took CNN, his “baby”, and destroyed it,” Trump wrote.
“It became woke, and everything he is not all about. Maybe the new buyers, wonderful people, will be able to bring it back to its former credibility and glory.”
What made him famous?
CNN was founded by Turner in 1980 but it wasn’t until about a decade later, during the first Gulf War in Iraq in 1991, that the network came to international prominence.
While most other networks left after a few days, CNN stayed, and captured extraordinary warzone footage.
Before that, in the 1970s, Turner owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association and skippered his yacht the Courageous to win sailing’s America’s Cup.
He was married three times, most famously to Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda.
Actress Jane Fonda and CNN founder Ted Turner at the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Dinner in 2013. (Picture: Jason DeCrow/AP)In 1996 Time Warner bought his Turner Broadcasting System for $7.5 billion, creating the world’s largest communications company, and then in 2001, Time Warner merged with online giant AOL.
But corporate moves after that merger eventually forced Turner out of his position, and he lost control of his empire, something he later said was one of his great regrets.
Forbes estimates Turner’s fortune at $2.8 billion.
“If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect,” he once said.
With Reuters
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