I doubt he got anything close to $80 million. The largest libel/slander award In Kentucky history was $100,000. There is reason to believe he might’ve gotten at least something in that neighborhood from each of CNN and WAPO with more lawsuits pending against other media companies. These media companies have internal message boards. Given the horrible things they were saying about him in public, what does anybody think they were posting about him on those message boards? All of that would be discoverable. I’m sure a lot of posts by famous “journalists” and executives would be very embarrassing for them. So they almost certainly paid more than just “nuisance money” Brin Stelter was claiming they paid - but I would doubt it was millions.
“I doubt he got anything close to $80 million. “
No, but he will still be in 7-8 figures after the lawyers. Corporations going up against someone who was legally a child is a very bad look. And who knows how ugly the trial would get and what would be shown in court. Making that go away is easily worth a few mil to those companies.