Damped outrigger systems have been proposed as a novel energy dissipation system to protect tall buildings from severe earthquakes and strong wind loads. In this study, semi-active damping devices such as magnetorheological (MR) dampers instead of passive dampers are installed vertically between the outrigger and perimeter columns to achieve large and adaptable energy dissipation. Control performance of semi-active outrigger damper system mainly depends on the control algorithm. Fuzzy logic control algorithm was used to generate command voltage sent to MR damper. Genetic algorithm was used to optimize the fuzzy logic controller. An artificial earthquake load was generated for numerical simulation. A simplified numerical model of damped outrigger system was developed. Based on numerical analyses, it has been shown that the semi-active damped outrigger system can effectively reduce both displacement and acceleration responses of the tall building in comparison with a passive outrigger damper system.