Ted Turner, the media mogul and CNN founder died on Wednesday at 87.

Key facts

- Turner, whose ventures ranged from co-founding a nonprofit to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons to owning a number of Atlanta sports teams, was likely best known for founding CNN in 1980, the nation’s first 24-hour, all-news cable channel.

- Turner’s all-hours approach to CNN, which he considered his “greatest achievement,” revolutionized television news, and he reportedly declared at the network’s founding that CNN “won't be signing off until the world ends.”

- Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO of CNN, honored Turner as the “presiding spirit of CNN” in a statement Wednesday, calling the late mogul an “intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment.”

- Turner died as the 1,518th-richest person in the world, but for decades he placed on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America, though his fortune took a tumble after the 2001 Time Warner-AOL merger caused the company’s shares to drop, five years after he sold his Turner Broadcasting company to Time Warner.

- Turner, who was known as the “Mouth of the South” for his brash and outspoken personality, previously told Forbes after exiting Time Warner he decided he would dedicate “most of my time to trying to save the world,” embracing philanthropic causes like protecting endangered species, opposing nuclear warfare and donating $1 billion to create the United Nations Foundation.

- Turner had five children and was married three times, including a decade-long union with actress Jane Fonda, who said in 2018 she would “never love anyone like I love him.”

Forbes valuation

Turner was worth $2.8 billion at the time of his death, Forbes estimated. He was once worth a lot more—on the Forbes 2001 billionaires list, he placed 35th with an estimated net worth of $8.8 billion—but after the Time Warner-AOL merger and ensuing tumult, his fortune plummeted. After the merger proved disastrous, and a clash with company CEO Gerald Levin led to Turner being demoted to head of cable networks, the value of Turner’s Time Warner stake plunged 80%, Forbes reported in 2011. Turner was the third-largest individual landowner in the United States by the time of his death, with an estimated 2 million acres across Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and New Mexico. (Source: Forbes)

Story Date: May 7, 2026