From the Trading Floor to a Sudden Exit: The Maria Bartiromo Story

For more than three decades, Maria Bartiromo was one of the most recognizable faces in American financial television. On September 3, 2026, Fox News Media announced, in a brief and largely unexplained statement, that she was no longer with the company — a sudden end to a run that had made her one of the network’s signature personalities.

From a Brooklyn Restaurant to the Trading Floor

Maria Sara Bartiromo was born September 11, 1967, in Brooklyn, New York, to an Italian-American family. Her grandfather Carmine arrived in the United States with just $12 and eventually opened the Rex Manor restaurant in Brooklyn, where Bartiromo worked as a teenager checking coats, often on holidays while other families rested. She was, by her own later account, fired from an early job at a bridal shop after repeatedly trying on dresses she was supposed to be organizing — a small failure she’s said taught her the value of doing whatever job was in front of her well.

Bartiromo studied journalism and economics at New York University, interning at CNN while still a student and spending her early career years working behind the camera before ever appearing on one. She joined CNBC in 1993, and in 1995 became the first journalist to report live and regularly from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange — a milestone that earned her the nickname “Money Honey” and made her one of the most recognizable figures in financial television. Over roughly two decades at CNBC, she anchored programs including Closing Bell and interviewed a long list of major CEOs and investors, while also teaching at NYU’s Stern School of Business.

In 2014, after about 20 years at CNBC, Bartiromo moved to Fox Business Network as global markets editor. There, her role expanded well beyond financial news: she became a prominent voice in American political media and developed a close professional relationship with Donald Trump, interviewing him frequently and becoming closely associated with his political coverage.

Marriage and Personal Life

Bartiromo married Jonathan Steinberg, the CEO of WisdomTree Investments and son of the late financier Saul Steinberg, in 1999. The couple, who have no children together, have generally kept their personal life relatively private, though Steinberg publicly marked their anniversary with an affectionate social media post in 2025.

Bartiromo’s most publicized personal controversy came in 2007, when reports emerged about her relationship with Todd Thomson, then the head of Citigroup’s wealth management division, after the two traveled together on the company’s corporate jet and attended events together in Asia. Thomson was ousted from Citigroup shortly afterward, with company leadership citing concerns about how he had managed the friendship and the corporate resources directed toward projects involving Bartiromo. Both denied any romantic relationship, and Bartiromo’s employer at the time stood by her; the episode did not appear to affect her marriage.

Legal Exposure at Fox

Bartiromo’s later years at Fox were shadowed by significant legal risk tied to the network’s coverage of the 2020 election. She was among the Fox hosts named in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit over false claims about voting machines, a case Fox settled in 2023 for $787.5 million — and she remained a defendant in a separate, ongoing defamation suit brought by Smartmatic, another voting technology company.

In June 2026, Bartiromo read an on-air apology after a guest on her program, entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, made unfounded claims that opponents of one of his data-center projects were receiving funding connected to the Chinese government — claims Fox confirmed had no basis in fact.

The September 2026 Departure

Fox announced Bartiromo’s exit on September 3, 2026, in a brief statement — “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media… We thank Maria for her work over the last 12½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter” — without giving a specific reason. She had not appeared on air since early August.

According to multiple outlets, including CNN and Status, the immediate trigger involved a dispute from mid-July: Bartiromo reportedly wanted to cover claims Trump made about China and the 2020 election during a primetime address, was told by a Fox Business executive the story would not air, and then shared a screenshot of that internal guidance with senior White House officials — an act Fox reportedly viewed as a serious breach of trust. The network’s executive producer for Mornings with Maria, Patrick Ignozzi, was also let go at the same time.

Bartiromo’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, disputed the reporting almost immediately, stating that claims she had been fired or was no longer a Fox employee were “absolutely and unequivocally false” and that he had “receipts and witnesses” prepared to support her case in or out of court. As of early September, Fox had not directly refuted the specific reporting on the internal-guidance leak, saying only that its original statement “speaks for itself.”

President Trump publicly expressed surprise at the news, calling Bartiromo “a total professional, and a true warrior” in a social media post, while Vice President JD Vance also offered praise, though he denied any connection to speculation that she might join the administration as press secretary.

What Fox Loses

Bartiromo’s programs were quickly renamed: Mornings with Maria became Mornings with Fox Business, helmed by rotating anchors, and Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street became FBN’s Wall Street. Her Sunday program, Sunday Morning Futures, continued with fill-in hosts including Jason Chaffetz while the network searched for a permanent replacement.

The departure came while her programs were still performing well: Mornings with Maria had led its pre-market time slot for ten consecutive months, and reporting at the time put her salary at roughly $6 million a year. Her exit represents the biggest personnel shake-up at Fox News since Tucker Carlson’s departure in 2023, and — like that earlier split — appears to reflect a mix of legal risk management and an increasingly strained relationship between a high-profile, highly opinionated host and network leadership trying to limit its own exposure after a run of costly defamation litigation.