Speculation Swirls Following Exit of Maria Bartiromo

Maria Bartiromo

Fox News Media has parted ways with longtime anchor Maria Bartiromo, effective Thursday, ending her 12½-year run at the company without stating a reason.“We thank Maria for her work over the last 12½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” the network said in a statement. 

Bartiromo, 58, did not respond to requests for comment. 

She had not appeared on Fox News or Fox Business for nearly a month; her last on-air appearance was “Sunday Morning Futures” on Aug. 9. The final episode of “Mornings with Maria” aired Thursday morning. Thursday's abrupt announcement was unexpected.

Fox said the weekday program will become “Mornings with FOX Business,” with rotating anchors starting Friday. “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” will be rebranded as “FBN’s Wall Street,” hosted this week by Cheryl Casone and then by rotating anchors. Jason Chaffetz will host “Sunday Morning Futures” this weekend, with a permanent replacement to be named later. 

Fox Business also said it will announce a new weekday schedule in the coming weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Bartiromo was one of Fox’s highest-profile personalities and, in recent years, a prominent advocate for President Trump and his administration. She joined Fox in 2014 and at times hosted as many as 16½ hours of programming a week, mostly on Fox Business.

Her on-air remarks have drawn controversy. In June she issued an on-air apology after investor Kevin O’Leary claimed on her show that opponents of his planned Utah data center were backed by Chinese interests — an assertion he later said he had no evidence to support.

Comments by Bartiromo and others on her program were cited in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox over false claims that the company helped rig the 2020 presidential election. Fox settled with Dominion in 2023 for $787.5 million. Bartiromo remains a defendant in Smartmatic’s ongoing defamation suit over similar 2020 election claims. Fox has said Smartmatic has been mired in scandals and cannot prove that any Fox reports caused it to lose business or suffer other financial harm.

Bartiromo began her career at CNBC, where she became known as “Money Honey” and a fixture of New York Stock Exchange floor coverage. Then-Fox CEO Roger Ailes, who had run CNBC during her rise there, brought her to Fox News.Year to date, “Mornings with Maria” averaged 114,000 viewers on Fox Business, “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” averaged 97,000, and “Sunday Morning Futures” averaged 1.8 million on Fox News, according to Nielsen. 

Fox News remains the most-watched cable-news network, averaging nearly 2.5 million prime-time viewers in the second quarter, compared with about 1.1 million for MS NOW and 711,000 for CNN. Fox Business averaged 242,000 total business-day viewers in the same period, versus 234,000 for CNBC.