BlackRock, Fox and Tucker Carlson: Untangling a web of corporate ownership claims

Is Fox News owned by the same company that owns its legal adversary Dominion Voting Systems?

That unlikely scenario caught fire on social media soon after news broke that Fox and its top prime-time host Tucker Carlson had parted ways. 

The cable network agreed April 18 to pay the voting technology company Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle its defamation lawsuit against Fox. 

"Blackrock owns 59.M shares of Dominion," read an April 24 post on Facebook. "Blackrock owns 45.7M shares of Fox. Blackrock sued itself and fired Tucker Carlson as part of that lawsuit."

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) Similar claims were also shared thousands of times on Twitter.

BlackRock Inc., a large financial investment management company, does not own Dominion Voting Systems. 

Dominion Voting Systems Corp. is owned, in part, by a private equity firm known as Staple Street Capital in New York. Staple Street Capital LLC acquired a 76.2% stake in Dominion Voting Systems in 2018 for $38.8 million. Dominion’s CEO and co-founder John Poulos owns about 12% of the company.

In a statement, Dominion Voting Systems said claims that it was owned by BlackRock were false. Dominion, which is privately held, is owned by Staple Street Capital and its employees, the statement said.

BlackRock owns 59.1 million shares of Dominion Energy Inc., a publicly traded power and energy company that is headquartered in Virginia and operates in 16 states, according to a filing from Fintel, a financial intelligence company. That’s 7.1% ownership of the company, Fintel found.

The similarity of the companies’ names appears to have contributed to the confusion. But we found nothing that suggested a link, financial or otherwise, between Dominion Voting Systems and Dominion Energy. 

Ryan Frazier, a Dominion Energy spokesperson, told PolitiFact that Dominion Energy and Dominion Voting Systems are not related. 

The post’s claims about BlackRock’s ownership of Fox Corp., Fox News’ parent company, were accurate: BlackRock owned 45.7 million shares of Fox Corp. as of Feb. 1, according to a Fintel filing. That’s 15.1% ownership of the company. 

We found no evidence that Fox News and Carlson’s decision to "part ways" was definitively linked to the defamation settlement, though the timing likely contributed to the speculation. 

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The news of Carlson’s departure came less than a week after Fox agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million. As it sued Fox News for defamation, Dominion argued that the network and its hosts — including Carlson — broadcast numerous false claims about Dominion’s voting technology following the 2020 election.

But neither Fox nor Carlson have provided a reason for terminating their business relationship. Former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who worked on Carlson’s show, has also sued Fox News, accusing the network and Carlson of sexism and workplace harassment.

On April 26, BlackRock addressed the rumors on Twitter, writing that Dominion Voting Systems is owned by a private equity firm that is not affiliated with BlackRock. 

"BlackRock has no ownership stake in Dominion Voting Systems, and we are not involved in the hiring and firing of employees at public companies in which our clients are invested," read the tweet. 

BlackRock has no ownership stake in Dominion Voting Systems, and we are not involved in the hiring and firing of employees at public companies in which our clients are invested. Dominion Voting Systems is owned by a private equity firm that is not affiliated with BlackRock.

— BlackRock (@BlackRock) April 26, 2023

PolitiFact reached out to Fox News and received no response.

Social media posts claimed that BlackRock owns shares of Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems, and that BlackRock sued itself and fired Tucker Carlson as part of that lawsuit.

BlackRock owns shares of Fox News, but not Dominion Voting Systems. BlackRock owns shares of another company, Dominion Energy. We found nothing to suggest that the energy company and voting company were connected beyond sharing a similar name. 

It is unclear what led Fox News and Carlson to "part ways"; neither party has given a reason.

We rate these claims Mostly False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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