John Malone, the “wired cowboy” who has shaped the wired business for decades, will get windfalls from a $34.5 billion blockbuster charter deal to acquire and merge with Cox Communications. However, his holding company Liberty Broadband will not become a direct shareholder of the newly merged company after the transaction is concluded and will not be a seat on the board.

In November 2024, Charter and Free Broadband announced an agreement that Charter will obtain Free Broadband, which owns 26% of Charter shares. According to the Free Broadband application, as of December 31, 2024, the fair value of Free Broadband's investment in the charter was approximately US$15.5 billion.

On Friday, the Charter said it expects the merger with Cox to be completed “at the same time as the previously announced Free Broadband merger.”

"As a result, Liberty Broadband will no longer be a direct shareholder in the Charter and will no longer designate directors to the Charter Committee." "As a result, the three Liberty Broadband nominees of the Charter Board will resign at the end." The Newhouse family will continue to serve as investors in the joint entity and have board representatives.

The three Free Global Designated Directors of the Charter Committee are: Balan Nair, President and CEO of Marone Free Latin America; Martin Patterson of Marone Free Media, Free Broadband, Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings and Qurate Retail Group, Senior Vice President of Marone Liberty Media; and Private Investment Company Wargo & Co. Founder and President J. David Wargo.

In the 2025 agent paper, Greg Maffei resigned as CEO of Malone Free Media late last year, and he will not replace the board, and his term will end at the annual meeting, the charter said. James Meyer, former CEO of Siriusxm, will also leave the Charter Committee.

Malone retired from the Charter Committee in 2018 but continued to serve as an "Empressive Director" to "provide positive support and advice to the company but not vote on matters raised by the board." In April 2024, Malone announced that he would give up his honorary position in the Charter "due to the uncertainty in the Clayton Act inquiry", referring to an antitrust law prohibiting company directors from serving on competitors' boards at the same time. Malone was the director of Warner Bros. Discovery at the time. Last month, he said he would withdraw from the WBD board of directors as "honor chair."

"I still invest in Charter through Liberty Broadband, which maintains its three board seats - and is confident in Charter's leadership team and business strategy," Malone said a year ago, revealing that he left the Charter committee. "Liberty Broadband is abandoning those seats now.