Weeks before arguably Liberty Media’s most glamorous addition to the F1 calendar, the Las Vegas GP, there has been a major shakeup within the company, with Greg Maffei leaving his role as CEO. John Malone has been announced as the man to replace him.
Maffei will leave his role at the end of the year, with 31st December officially being his last day in office. Malone has been announced as an interim replacement, with it being unclear who the new permanent CEO will be.
Worth $10.8 billion as of 2024, Malone built his wealth and fame between the 1970s and 1990s when he was CEO of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI). He sold the company to AT&T a year before the turn of the millennia and has since been an investor in various sectors.
Malone is also the current Chairman of Liberty Media and the largest voting shareholder. That’s not all — the 83-year-old is also a member of the board of directors for Qurate Retail, Inc. and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.
Greg Maffei, the CEO of Liberty Media, is stepping down at the end of the year. He will continue as a senior advisor to aid the management transition.
John Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media, will assume the role of interim CEO #F1
— Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) November 13, 2024
He will temporarily become the CEO of the company he has been a Chairman of for some time until they find a proper replacement for Maffei. It seems unlikely that Malone will take over as full-time CEO.
Before taking office, Malone thanked Maffei, who had been Liberty Media’s CEO since 2005, overseeing its tremendous growth which included the purchases of F1, MotoGP, and also Formula E. “He has grown our asset base and made the company better and more valuable for shareholders, along the way overseeing as many as five separate public companies simultaneously,” Malone said in a statement.