No Hollywood scriptwriter — not even the brilliantly creative minds behind the hit TV series Succession — would surely have dared pen such an outrageously unlikely plot.
At the age of 93 and newly married for the fifth time, the media magnate Rupert Murdoch is embroiled in a struggle every bit as titanic and as domestically brutal as anything imagined in that compelling drama about the Roy family’s tussle for control of its ruthless patriarch’s global empire and the riches and influence that come with it.
Yet the headlines which greeted the news that Murdoch was locked in a secret legal battle with his children over the future of the vast business barely do justice to what promises to be the tycoon’s last (and certainly most troubling) boardroom battle — to preserve the company he built as a conservative political force after his death.
‘Murdoch in real-life succession drama,’ said one; ‘Murdoch’s succession plans just got a lot more like Succession,’ said another.
James Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch in 2007 at the National Portrait Gallery in London
The media mogul is estranged from his daughters, including Prudence (pictured)
But the explosive revelations in a sealed court document unearthed by the New York Times are far more consequential for they have exposed the rift at the heart of the Murdoch family, a rift so deep that many observers believe it can never be healed. The story began last year when Murdoch secretly instigated an attempt to change the terms of a family trust to ensure that his eldest son and chosen successor, Lachlan, would remain in sole charge of the TV and newspaper conglomerate after his death.
He was concerned that interference from his other children, who are more politically moderate than Lachlan and their father, could influence the companies’ editorial stance.
Such a move would wrestle control away from his other children, James, Elisabeth and Prudence from whom he is now estranged, and it has triggered a legal dispute that promises to be as unseemly as it will be compelling.
It has, say friends, cast a deep and ugly shadow over Murdoch’s twilight years.
And it has already begun to play out. When Murdoch married retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, 67, in the grounds of his sun-drenched Los Angeles vineyard in June, critics snootily observed that only one of his four previous wives attended.
Of far more significance was the absence of Prudence, Elisabeth and James. Only Lachlan was present, along with Murdoch’s younger daughters, by his third wife Wendi Deng, Chloe and Grace — who have an equal share with their older siblings of the family trust’s equity — but no voting rights.
When, ten months ago, Lachlan was unveiled as his father’s preferred heir, many confidently predicted that this apparently bold manoeuvre would finally end the question which has obsessed and intrigued broadcasters and politicians for decades about who would succeed Rupert Murdoch as the most powerful international figure in the media world.
What was left unanswered was whether 52-year-old Lachlan’s position would be uncontested. All the noise at the time suggested Murdoch was content for that to be settled after he had gone.
Behind the scenes, however, it seemed he was still determinedly pulling the strings.
Murdoch is arguing that he is following a narrow provision in the trust which allows for changes done in good faith and meant to benefit all members
The billionaire is embroiled in a struggle every bit as titanic and as domestically brutal as anything imagined in Succession
Not long after filing the petition to change the trust’s terms, Murdoch flew to London to meet separately with Elisabeth and Prudence, hoping for their support. But, far from securing their backing, they were, said the New York Times, ‘furious’. According to the newspaper, ‘Elisabeth responded to the possibility with a string of expletives’.
Nevertheless, just days later, on December 6, Murdoch’s representatives back in the U.S. went ahead with a motion to make the changes at a ‘hastily called’ special meeting of the trust in Reno, Nevada. An attempt by the three children to adjourn the meeting and block the proposed changes failed. The Nevada probate commissioner found that Murdoch could amend the trust if he is able to show he is acting in good faith and for the sole benefit of his heirs, the New York Times said quoting from the commissioner’s 48-page findings.
A trial to determine whether the businessman is acting in good faith is due to begin in September. At stake is the future of a £15 billion empire whose assets range from the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and the Fox News channel in the U.S. to The Sun, The Times and publishers HarperCollins in Britain.
Until now, this increasingly nasty domestic quarrel has been playing out entirely hidden from public view. The trial in September will change all that.
So what lies behind it and why would a man who for decades has almost obsessively protected his family’s privacy now potentially jeopardise it?
In court filings Rupert Murdoch has argued that only by giving Lachlan the power to run the company without interference from his brother and two sisters can Murdoch preserve its traditional conservative leanings — and protect its commercial value for all his heirs.
He has called his effort to change the trust Project Harmony because he hoped it might head off family feuds and a power struggle after his death. Instead, it has had the opposite effect.
In the sealed documents, Murdoch expresses his worry that a ‘lack of consensus’ among his four children ‘would impact the strategic direction at [his] companies including a potential reorientation of editorial policy and content.’ It further states that his wish was to ‘consolidate decision-making power in Lachlan’s hands and give him permanent, exclusive control’.
As of now, the voting rights are shared among Murdoch and his four oldest children. But Murdoch has ultimate control and cannot be out-voted. After he dies, Lachlan, Elisabeth James and Prudence each get a single vote.
In 2006 Murdoch spelt it thus: ‘If I go under a bus tomorrow, it will be one of the four of them who will have to decide which of the ones should lead them.’
Now, he wants to change all that to give Lachlan supreme authority and ensure he cannot be challenged.
James (left) became increasingly uncomfortable about Fox News’ embrace of Donald Trump. Lachlan is considered further to the right
The family famously have been divided before. At one point both James and Elisabeth competed with each other and Lachlan to take over. James, 51, who once helped run the company with Lachlan, left it in 2019 and now oversees an investment fund while Elisabeth, 55, who lives in Britain, runs a film studio, Sister. Prudence, 66, Murdoch’s eldest child and the only one from his first marriage, has been the least involved in the family business and has remained the most private of his children.
Politics and power lie at the heart of this struggle. Over the years the family’s political views have diverged sharply.
As Murdoch and Lachlan became more closely aligned, pushing the company’s most influential and strident outlet Fox News further to the Right during the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, the other children — particularly James — became increasingly uncomfortable. In 2020 James quit the News Corp board citing ‘disagreements over certain editorial content pushed by the company’s news outlets’.
After the January 2021 riots by Trump supporters at the Capitol, in Washington DC, he went further, indirectly criticising Fox News by declaring that ‘outlets that propagate lies to their audience’ had ‘unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years’.
Four years ago he attacked his father’s newspapers and TV channels for the way they covered climate change, particularly after wildfires ravaged parts of Australia.
Elisabeth also criticised her father’s media empire in the wake of the UK phone hacking scandal and hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama in 2008.
According to the New York Times, Murdoch has particularly come to resent James’s criticisms and complaints given that he and his siblings have become billionaires thanks to the family business. In 2019 all six of Murdoch’s children received payouts of $2 billion (about £1.6 billion) from the sale of the firm’s movie studios to the Disney company.
Intriguingly the court documents appear to indicate that Murdoch’s representatives have referred to his younger son in their own communications as the ‘troublesome beneficiary’.
It had always been unclear how serious James was about trying to make a move against Lachlan — or if he would have the support of his sisters in such an effort.
The fact that they have come together to preserve the trust suggests they may well try to oust Lachlan or at least to influence the direction of the company after their father’s death. In their argument they claim their father is trying to disenfranchise them and that his move violates the spirit of the trust — set up 25 years ago — enshrined in its ‘equal governance provision’.
Furthermore, they contend that their father was not acting in good faith. The trust dates back to Murdoch’s split from his second wife Anna — mother of Lachlan, James and Elisabeth — who insisted as part of her divorce deal that all four children should have an equal share in the business through an irrevocable trust.
But Murdoch came to see that position as untenable. Battle lines have now been drawn: both sides have hired high-powered lawyers. The three children are sharing legal counsel while Murdoch is represented by the attorney involved in estate disputes concerning Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. Representatives from both sides declined to comment to the New York Times.
The Mail has approached the Murdochs for comment.
The dispute echoes the power struggles depicted in Succession, that was widely said to have been inspired by the life of the Murdochs and other media dynasties.
This fight comes at a critical time for Murdoch with a U.S. election in November. Far from diminishing as he ages — he will be 94 in March — it seems his influence and power is about to be extended. Could Succession’s writers have ever come up with such a twist?
