WBD chair emeritus John Malone calls CNN ‘left-leaning, anti-Trump’

John Malone, the billionaire cable king who helped bankroll CNN at its birth, torched the network for becoming a partisan, “left-leaning, anti-Trump” megaphone.

The 84-year-old media mogul, who is chair emeritus of CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, said it has turned into a distorting version of the pioneering news channel founded by Ted Turner in 1980, according to his new memoir, “Born to Be Wired.”

“CNN’s employees, largely left of center, express their opinions too much in their news,” Malone wrote.

In an interview to promote the book, Malone called CNN “a left-leaning, anti-Trump news service.”

“They can’t help themselves,” he told the New York Times.

“CNN is now a shadow of what its founder had envisioned.”

The remarks carry weight because Malone isn’t just another cranky critic.

He built his cable empire by wiring 20% of American households through Tele-Communications Inc. and remains one of the most influential figures in the media.

Malone said that despite WBD boss David Zaslav’s efforts to reposition CNN as more centrist, the network remains mired behind rivals Fox Newws and MSNBC in the ratings because of its partisan image.

CNN, stung by Malone’s broadside, fired back with a statement insisting that under CEO Mark Thompson, the network is committed to fairness.

“Mark has made it clear from day one that he believes in a CNN that is fair-minded and biased in favor of the facts rather than any political party or interest,” a spokeswoman told The Post.

“In the nearly two years he has been CEO and editor-in-chief, he has never experienced any attempt by anyone inside or connected to WBD to improperly influence CNN’s journalism in any way.”

Malone, who was nicknamed “Darth Vader” by former Vice President Al Gore for his ruthless approach to cable deals, had swallowed up smaller companies at a dizzying pace in the 1970s and ’80s, averaging one deal every two weeks.

“Trust me, there’s no fun as much as running a monopoly,” he quipped in his memoir.

By the time he sold TCI to AT&T in 1999 for $48 billion, Malone had reshaped the TV landscape. He later went global with Liberty Media and Liberty Global, investing across sports, entertainment and broadband.

Malone’s memoir also dishes on his behind-the-scenes role in helping media titans like Turner, and later Rupert Murdoch, who sought his advice before launching Fox News in 1996.

Malone revealed in the book that he held “serious discussions” with Murdoch last summer about merging Warner Bros. Discovery with Fox, but said the talks stalled over the difficulty of housing both Fox News and CNN under one roof.

A Fox source told The Post that the issue was raised in talks but that it was never seriously pursued.

The excerpt was first reported by the Financial Times.

Malone, who supports a planned split of Warner into two companies, also signaled openness to future deals — including in sports and Formula 1 — while pledging to leave most of his fortune to philanthropy.

Murdoch, 94, is chair emeritus at Fox News parent company Fox Corp as well as The Post’s corporate parent News Corp.