What is Fareed Zakaria’s Net Worth, Career, Biography, Facts, Age, Life Story

Fareed Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist, author, and political commentator who has a net worth of $14 million. Fareed is most well-known as the host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

Fareed Zakaria Salary

Fareed’s annual salary at CNN is $5 million.

Early Life

Zakaria was born on January 20, 1964 in Mumbai, India. His father, Rafiq Zakaria, was a politician in the Indian National Congress and also an Islamic theologian. His mother, Fatima Zakaria, worked as the editor of the Sunday Times of India. He was raised in a Konkani Muslim family.

Zakaria attended the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai and then enrolled at Yale University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1986. While at Yale, he was the president of the Yale Political Union and also the editor in chief of the Yale Political Monthly. He then enrolled at Harvard University where he achieved a PhD in government.

Career

Zakaria began his career after directing a research project on American foreign policy at Harvard when he became the managing editor of Foreign Affairs in 1992 at the age of 28. While there, he also worked as an adjunct professor at Columbia University where he taught courses on international relations. By 2000, he was named the editor of Newsweek International. Ten years later, in August of 2010, he became the editor-at-large at Time and also worked as a writer for a column. He also began writing weekly columns at The Washington Post and at The Atlantic Monthly.

Additionally, Zakaria often published articles in other noted publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The New Republic. He also briefly worked as a wine columnist for Slate, though he wrote under the pseudonym of George Saintsbury. He also authored a number of books throughout his career, including “From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role,” “The Future of Freedom,” “The Post-American World,” and “In Defense of a Liberal Education.” A number of these books made the New York Times bestseller list.

In addition to writing, Zakaria has become well-known as a television host and political commentator. He began his television career as the news analyst on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” from 2002 to 2007 as a member of the Sunday morning roundtable. From 2005 to 2008, he hosted the weekly news show, “Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria” on PBS. In June of 2008, his CNN show, “Fareed Zakaria Global Public Square” premiered. The show airs twice per week in the United States and four times per week on CNN International. In 2013, he signed on as producer for the HBO series “Vice” and also serves as a consultant for the series.

In terms of his political views, Zakaria generally describes himself as a centrist though others have described him as being a radical centrist, politically liberal, and even conservative, depending on who is describing him. He supported Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election and was named one of the 25 most influential liberals in the American media by “Forbes” in 2009. In general, Zakaria has made an effort to not be too overtly devoted to any particular political ideology for the sake of his job as a news host and commentator. He has made his views known on a number of different issues however. He has criticized American policies that he describes as “fear-based” in regard to immigration laws, drug-smuggling policies, and the war on terror. In 2021, he criticized the size of the military budget in the United States as being far too large, especially when compared to how other world powers, like China, are spending their money.

Over his career, Zakaria has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. He has been nominated for the National Magazine Award five times, winning once, for his columns and commentary. He has also won a Peabody Award for his television show, which has also received a number of Emmy Award nominations. He was named the India Abroad Person of the Year in 2008.

A number of universities have also given Zakaria honorary degrees, including Brown University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Oberlin College, and the University of Oklahoma. In 2010, he was given the Padma Bhushan award by the Indian government for his contribution to the field of journalism. In 2020, he was awarded the International Center for Journalists Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism. He has also served on the boards of the Council of Foreign Relations, Columbia University’s International House, City College of New York’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, and was a trustee of Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University.

Personal Life

After living in the United States for many years, Zakaria became a naturalized American citizen. In 1997, he married Paula Throckmorton, a jewelry designer. The couple had three children together before his wife filed for divorce in 2018. The couple decided not to raise their children in the religion of Islam, as Throckmorton is Christian. Zakaria himself is a secular and nonpracticing Muslim. He lives in the Upper West Side in New York City.