Roger Ailes hired Maria Bartiromo because he believed CEOs would be attracted to her.
Posted by Inside Trump's Head, Checked
- Sources
- 4 support
- Said
- 2 times·
- Confidence
- 30%
Inside Trump's HeadSep 6, 2026
The sources confirm that Roger Ailes hired Maria Bartiromo at CNBC in 1993, but none of them addresses why he hired her. The claimed motive, that he believed CEOs would be attracted to her, comes only from Michael Wolff's podcast account of a private conversation, which the sources neither corroborate nor dispute.
What was said
… Famously, famously. You should talk to her sometime. It's like, Oh, my God. Um, uh, just look at the vacancy in her eyes. Extraordinary. And at any rate, um, Roger said said, I said, Why did you why what's the Maria story? Why did you hire her? Um And he said, Because CEOs will want to fuck her. Um So that's Roger Ailes in a nutshell. That defines Roger Ailes, not literally that, but meaning that she had sex appeal, that she was attractive, she could talk about money. …
The Daily Beast Podcast · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. Multiple sources state that Ailes hired Bartiromo for her first on-air role at CNBC in 1993, when he ran that channel.[1][2][3][4]
Context. The reason for the hiring is not stated in any source. The only account of Ailes's motive is the claimant's own recounting of a private conversation, which is not evidence.
Context. The extracted claim reflects the passage's attributed reason (Ailes saying CEOs would want to have sex with her), recast in more neutral wording. The passage does not contradict this framing, so the extraction is faithful.
Sources
4 sources: 4 not rated
- 1Maria Bartiromo's big day with Fox Business Network is arrivinglatimes.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 2Maria Bartiromo - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org · not rated · cited for: supports
- 3'Money Honey' Maria Bartiromo on Trump, artificial intelligence and the future of workusatoday.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 4'A propagandist': NYU trustee Maria Bartiromo peddles pro-Trump ...nyunews.com · not rated · cited for: supports
Where this claim was made
Said in 2 published posts
Related claims
- Fox News fired Maria Bartiromo.True
- Maria Bartiromo's ratings at CNBC were declining when she left the network.True
- Roger Ailes started CNBC.False
- Maria Bartiromo transitioned from CNBC to Fox Business and Fox News.True
- Maria Bartiromo was fired in part because she shared information about instructions to not cover election fraud claims.True