News tycoon Rupert Murdoch to marry for fifth time at 92, this time to a Russian born scientist

Australian-American media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is engaged to get married for the fifth time at 92, this time to his girlfriend, Elena Zhukova, a 67-year-old retired Russian molecular biologist.

A spokesperson for the Murdoch family confirmed the engagement this Friday to Australian Broadcasting Company hours after The New York Times reported the news. 

According to the Times, Murdoch and Zhukova have been in a relationship since last summer and plan to get married on a California farm with vineyards owned by the media tycoon.

Zhukova, who left Moscow toward the end of the Soviet era, has long been a resident in the United States for several decades, is a retired molecular biologist who specialized in the study of diabetes and conducted research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her ex-husband, Alexander Zhukov, is a billionaire energy investor who now resides in London as a British citizen, and her daughter, Dasha Zhukova, is an entrepreneur and arts philanthropist was previously married to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

While the marriage will be Murdoch’s fifth, it is his sixth wedding engagement.

After he divorced Jerry Hall, the model and ex-wife of Mick Jagger, in the summer of 2022, he proposed to retired dental hygienistAnn Lesley Smith in the spring of 2023.

But he surprised the media when he broke off that engagement two weeks later.

The announcement of the engagement comes half a year after the media magnate resigned as president of Fox News groups and the News Corp. which are now being run by his son, Laclan.

Murdoch announced last year that he would be retiring as the head of his businesses and would be maintaining an emeritus role instead. 

“Mr. Murdoch’s marriage would be unlikely to affect the future of the company, which is effectively controlled through a family trust whose shares belong to him and his four eldest children — one with his first wife, Patricia Booker, the other three with his second wife, Anna Murdoch Mann,” the New York Times reported.