The succession battle at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has ended.
The family announced on Monday that Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch’s eldest son, will secure control of the Murdochs’ sprawling media empire that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Times in the UK, with his three oldest siblings receiving an estimated $1.1bn each for their shares in the business.
The deal ends a sometimes bitter legal battle between Murdoch’s oldest children for control of their 94-year-old father’s business that has been reminiscent of the HBO show Succession, which was purportedly inspired by the Murdoch family. It also conserves the media company’s conservative bent; Lachlan Murdoch is regarded as the most conservative of Murdoch’s oldest children.
Lachlan is the current chair of News Corp, the parent company of over two dozen publications including the Journal, The Times and the New York Post, after he succeeded his father in 2023.
Rupert Murdoch’s children with his third wife Wendy Deng, Chloe and Grace, will join Lachlan in a new family trust that will hold controlling stakes in Fox Corporation and News Corp, the Murdochs’ media groups. Under the agreement, Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch will be the beneficiaries of a trust that will house the proceeds of the sale.
The three children took their father to court in Reno, Nevada, after he tried to wrest away their voting power and leave Lachlan with sole control of the companies in a project Murdoch reportedly named “Project Family Harmony”.
According to court records, Murdoch told others in private that while he wanted harmony in the family, he believed Lachlan was the best to lead his media empire into the future.
“Would love nothing more than peace all around,” he wrote to his ex-wife Anna, the mother of Elisabeth, Lachlan and James. “But the fact remains Lachlan is the best to run the business — greatly respected inside and outside!”
During the legal dispute, Murdoch told his eldest children, according to the New York Times: “These companies are my legacy. I have put everything into them over my life.” He described his media assets as a “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world” and argued only Lachlan’s leadership could protect them in that role.
Family and political differences appear to have driven a wedge between Lachlan and his siblings. James Murdoch has been a vocal critic of the political slant of the family business, particularly on climate change and its support of Donald Trump, who is currently suing Murdoch’s the Wall Street Journal.
In a rare interview earlier published this year, James Murdoch told the Atlantic magazine that he regarded his father as a “misogynist” and described Fox News as a “menace” to US democracy. According to the article, James and Rupert had barely spoken in years.
The family finally agreed on a buyout after the case, which happened out of public eye for months, went into appeals, according to the New York Times.
Last December, Nevada commissioner Edmund Gorman concluded that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch had acted in “bad faith” in their attempts to change the terms of an irrevocable trust that divided control of the company between Murdoch’s four oldest children.
Gorman’s scathing 96-page opinion accused Murdoch and his eldest son of a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles”.
Lachlan Murdoch is now the de facto heir to one of the world’s most powerful media businesses. As well as Fox News and Fox Sports and the multinational newspaper business, the Murdochs control publisher Harper Collins and the fast-growing Tubi, a free streaming service.
“News Corp’s board of directors welcomes these developments and believes that the leadership, vision and management by the Company’s Chair, Lachlan Murdoch, will continue to be important to guiding the Company’s strategy and success,” News Corp said in a statement.
