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Outlet profile

Newsmax

U.S. far-right

Owned byPublicly traded company (NYSE: NMAX) founded and majority-controlled by CEO Christopher Ruddy, who holds roughly 30% of shares after a March 2025 IPO
FundingCable and satellite affiliate fees, television and digital advertising, subscriptions (Newsmax+ streaming service), licensing, and nutraceutical product sales; raised public capital via a March 2025 NYSE IPO; received a reported $50 million investment from a member of the Qatari royal family around 2019–2020
On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

Newsmax was founded in 1998 by Christopher Ruddy, a former investigative journalist, as a conservative news website that drew early financial backing from the Scaife family and other right-leaning donors. The outlet expanded into cable television in 2014 with the launch of Newsmax TV. After the November 2020 presidential election, Trump began steering his supporters toward Newsmax after Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden; Newsmax seized the moment by amplifying unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, rapidly growing its audience. Dominion Voting Systems sued Newsmax for defamation in 2021 over that coverage, seeking $1.6 billion in damages; in August 2025, Newsmax settled for $67 million without retracting its earlier reporting. Newsmax went public on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2025 (ticker: NMAX), with shares surging more than 700% on the first trading day. Independent media-bias trackers including Ad Fontes Media, Media Bias/Fact Check, and AllSides consistently place Newsmax in the right to far-right range, citing promotion of conspiracy theories and a pattern of failed fact checks. With Trump back in office since January 2025, Newsmax has continued its explicitly supportive coverage of his administration.

Sources

  1. Newsmax - Wikipedia
  2. Newsmax TV - Wikipedia
  3. Christopher Ruddy - Wikipedia
  4. Newsmax to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting over 2020 election coverage - NPR
  5. Newsmax stock surges after its IPO - CNN Business
  6. Newsmax founder Ruddy is now a billionaire after IPO - Bloomberg
  7. Newsmax Bias and Credibility - Media Bias/Fact Check
  8. Newsmax Website Bias and Reliability - Ad Fontes Media
  9. Newsmax News Source - AllSides
  10. Newsmax posts $189.3M revenue in 2025 - StockTitan SEC Filing
  11. How Newsmax ownership and funding influence its coverage - Factually

Profile compiled 2026-06-25; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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