By Byron Kaye and Helen Coster
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Fox Corp chief executive Lachlan Murdoch will return to the United States from a months-long Australian sojourn in early September, a spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.
Murdoch, who also co-chairs publisher News Corp with his father Rupert Murdoch, moved with his family to Sydney last month, joining a host of high profile people who have opted to ride out the coronavirus pandemic in relatively unaffected Australia.
Spokesman John Connolly said Murdoch, who is also Fox’s executive chairman, would return to Los Angeles in early September to reopen the company’s operational head office there “and will go back to working and living in the U.S.”
Fox last month told its 9,000 staff to return to their U.S. offices from Sept. 7, after working at from home for several months.
“As with most CEOs of large companies, he’s looking forward to moving from working from home to working from the office,” Connolly said, adding that Murdoch would commute regularly to Sydney where his immediate family will remain.
While he is in Sydney, Murdoch will work midnight to morning local time, a source familiar with the plans said.
Australia and the United States have had vastly different pandemic experiences. While an average of around 69,500 new COVID-19 infections are being reported in the United States each day, Australia has a near zero rate. The surge in U.S. cases led Biden to urge states on March 29 to pause reopening efforts as a top health official warned of “impending doom”.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney and Helen Coster in New York; editing by Jane Wardell)
