• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, April 28, 2025

In a dramatic — and until now, unreported — shift, Jay Penske has quietly taken full control of SXSW, ending the festival’s founder-led era and setting the stage for a corporate remake of one of Austin’s most iconic cultural institutions.

According to sources with direct knowledge, Penske acquired an additional 1% stake in SXSW from a private investor in August of 2023, pushing his ownership over the 50% threshold and giving him controlling interest. With that control secured, Penske has moved to exercise control: in a recorded all-staff Zoom meeting, it was announced that longtime President Hugh Forrest had "resigned." 

Forrest responded with a statement saying “leaving South by Southwest was definitely not my decision.” Insiders say he was terminated, along with nine other senior executives, including Charlie Sotelo, producer of the  SXSW Comedy Festival, and Lillian Park, vice president communications. The other executives who’ve been terminated have not been announced, and Penske has so far refused comment. 

This leadership purge did not come out of nowhere. Over the past year, sources say SXSW staff faced mounting pressure from Penske and his team to maximize profits — and to recalibrate the festival’s political balance by featuring more conservative speakers. The shift wasn’t driven by audience demand. It came directly from ownership.

The dual mandates — profitability first, ideological rebalancing second — created deep internal tensions leading up to last week’s terminations.

Pattern Repeats Itself

The leadership shake-up at SXSW fits a familiar pattern at Penske Media Corporation.

After PMC acquired Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard, and The Hollywood Reporter, insiders reported a consistent trend: editorial independence shrinking, advertiser influence growing, and a deliberate shift away from progressive cultural voices.

At Rolling Stone, tensions surfaced as political coverage softened. At Variety and Billboard, editorial leadership changed and commercial priorities rose. In each case, corporate synergy overtook editorial identity.

The same dynamic has now arrived at SXSW. First, the founders stepped aside. Then, the cultural mission shifted. Now, with Hugh Forrest’s ouster, the final transformation is underway.

A Subtle but Powerful Shift: How Penske Rewrites Culture

Jay Penske has carefully projected political neutrality. He avoids partisan endorsements, stays out of public political fights, and frames his leadership through the language of business and growth.

But neutrality in image is not neutrality in effect.

Penske’s family fortune was built by his father, the legendary race car driver Roger Penske, who built a multibillion-dollar empire in trucking, transportation, and motorsports. Though once a moderate Republican donor who backed anti-Trump groups in 2016, the senior Penske shifted course after Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019 — just after Penske made his first donation to Trump’s reelection. He’s already contributed $1.1 million to Trump-aligned efforts in 2024.

And insiders at multiple PMC brands describe the same underlying trend: a quiet realignment toward "balanced" — often more conservative — voices and priorities.

At SXSW, those pressures became impossible to ignore. Staff were directed to bring more conservative voices to the stage, reshaping the festival’s speaker profile and editorial tone — not as a creative decision, but as an ownership mandate.

As one insider put it: "It was clear that SXSW wasn’t just supposed to be about innovation anymore. It was about shifting the brand — whether the community agreed or not."

A Slow, Strategic Overtake

In retrospect, the founder transitions were a warning. SXSW co-founder and longtime CEO Roland Swenson moved into an executive chairman role in 2022, publicly framed as a natural handoff after decades of leadership. But privately, sources say, the move coincided with Penske’s increasing influence — reducing Swenson’s ability to direct SXSW’s future.

After Swenson stepped aside, co-presidents Jann Baskett and Hugh Forrest assumed leadership. Baskett transitioned to an advisory role in 2024. Forrest remained, until he became the next casualty of Penske’s consolidation.

The End of an Era

For decades, SXSW thrived on its scrappy, decentralized energy — a collision of musicians, technologists, filmmakers, and makers, building something larger than the sum of its parts.

It wasn’t always perfect, but it belonged to its creative community.

Now, that spirit has been sidelined.

The signs were gathering for some time. Penske’s media brands — Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard, Vox Media — steadily increased their SXSW footprint. International expansions to Sydney and London pointed toward a new commercial model. But with the firing of Forrest and the purge of senior leadership, the shift is no longer theoretical.

The founder era at SXSW has ended. The Penske era has begun.

The shift comes at a precarious moment for the festival, with its longtime leadership ousted, programming pressures rising, and the Austin Convention Center — SXSW’s traditional home base — slated for demolition and reconstruction through 2029.

As ownership priorities change and the festival navigates a dramatically reshaped landscape, SXSW faces a pivotal test: whether it can retain its role as a cultural crossroads — or become just another commercial brand, remade in the increasingly conservative image of its new owners.

That remains to be seen.