Who is Christopher Ruddy? All about the journalist and Newsmax founder as he becomes a billionaire

Christopher Ruddy, renowned journalist and founder of conservative outlet, Newsmax, is now a billionaire.

The Chief Executive Officer of the company now boasts a fortune of about $3.3 billion following the 735% surge in its shares. The company, valued at $10.7 billion, had a $10 offering price according to Forbes. The surge caused trading to come to a grinding halt at least 10 times and culminated in the 60-year-old founder becoming a billionaire.

The American journalist and majority owner of Newsmax Media worked as editor-in-chief of the New York Guardian early on in his career. He then segued to The New York Post, where he worked as an investigative reporter. By 1995, he began working with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as a national correspondent.

Back in January 2010, Britain's Daily Telegraph ranked Christopher Ruddy as one of the "100 Most Influential Conservatives" in the U.S. At the time, the paper read:

"Chris Ruddy is an increasingly powerful and influential player in the conservative media and beyond."

He founded Newsmax back in 1998 with a $25,000 investment from Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire heir. By 2009, the former owned 60% of the firm while the latter held 40% as a silent partner. At the time of writing, Newsmax is the fourth-largest news channel in the U.S., raking in about 30 million regular viewers in the final three months of last year, Forbes has reported.

---

Everything we know about Christopher Ruddy's Newsmax as firm records loss after loss:

Christopher Ruddy stated announcing the listing, as reported by Forbes:

“Today marks a historic milestone for Newsmax as we transition to a publicly traded company. This incredibly successful offering, combined with our previous preferred offering, provides us with the capital and financial freedom to accelerate our growth initiatives, expand our programming and further enhance our digital presence.”

As per the outlet, Newsmax's offering document states that Christopher Ruddy owns 31% of the company, which is worth approximately $3.3 billion. The closing price was $83.51. He also owns all of the Boca Raton, Florida-based firm’s Class A shares, allowing him 10 voting rights per share, compared to one vote per share for all Class B shareholders.

This grants Christopher Ruddy 81% of the company’s votes. At the time of writing, Ruddy has yet to comment on the situation, though he didn't sell any shares in the New York Stock Exchange offering.

Other investors also include Interactive Brokers Group Inc. founder, Thomas Peterffy. He owns 23 million shares worth $1.9 billion through Conyers Investments LLC. Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al-Thani is also an investor. The Qatari royal's investment firm, Heritage Advisors, boasts 19.7 million shares. Vadim Shulman, a Ukrainian industrialist, is also an investor.

---

According to Yahoo Finance, Newsmax’s share price now places the company value at a staggering $10.7 billion, if not more. Just last year, the firm lost $72 million on revenue of about $171 million, compared to the $42 million net loss on $135 million revenues in the year before that.

Furthermore, while revenues have been tripling between 2019 and 2022, the following year, the firm clocked in more losses than doubled, Forbes has reported.