NEW YORK — Rupert Murdoch said on Monday his News Corp. (NYSE:NEWS) would not get into a fight with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) over Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), confirming what most industry and Wall Street observers suspected.
Murdoch’s company has been in talks with Yahoo over a transaction to combine News Corp’s MySpace Internet social network and other Internet assets with Yahoo, a source familiar with the talks said earlier.
“We’re not going to get into a fight with Microsoft, which has a lot more money than us,” Murdoch told investors at the annual Bear Stearns media conference.
Microsoft has made an unsolicited $41.4 billion bid to buy Yahoo.
Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has also held talks to combine its AOL Internet division with Yahoo, another source said last week.