On an overcast September morning, Rupert Murdoch emerged from a white SUV and made his way toward the copper dome and looming pillars of the Washoe County Courthouse in downtown Reno. The 93-year-old media giant clutched the hand of Elena Zhukova, a former Russian scientist and his fifth wife, as they climbed the stairs together and disappeared underneath the cavernous doorway. Soon after, his eldest son Lachlan arrived with his wife, a subtle smile on his face as he followed his father into the courthouse. Inside, three of Rupert’s other children — James, Elisabeth and Prudence — waited.
Ahead of the family was a week of high-stakes hearings kept behind closed doors. The legal showdown could determine the fate of Rupert’s sprawling multibillion-dollar empire, consisting of both News Corp and Fox Corporation, which own dozens of outlets, including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. The family, split into two factions, turned up in Nevada — a state that offers high confidentiality in legal matters of family trust disputes — to answer a very big question: Who will control the family media empire after Rupert’s death?
That question was supposed to be settled after Rupert announced his retirement in 2023 and Lachlan was named CEO of the Fox/News Corp powerhouse. The company’s voting shares controlled by the Murdoch family, roughly 40 percent, were to be distributed equally between the four eldest children after Rupert’s passing. Everything seemed future-proofed.
Until last summer, when The New York Times obtained a court document exposing a new twist in the Murdoch succession saga: Rupert wanted to amend the terms of his irrevocable family trust to grant his full voting share, all 40 percent, solely to Lachlan.
In early December, one year since Rupert first filed his petition, a Nevada probate court commissioner ruled against Rupert’s wishes. The sharp and scathing 96-page opinion, as reported by The New York Times, called Murdoch’s plan “a carefully crafted charade” to secure Lachlan’s leadership “regardless of the impacts” on the family companies or trust beneficiaries, and deemed that Rupert and Lachlan acted in “bad faith” toward the other siblings.
Although the ruling is not a final decision — Lachlan and Rupert reportedly intend to appeal — it presents a significant setback for the media mogul. The trust, once designed to foster peace among the children and preserve the family business, now threatens to drive the already-fractured family further apart.
The ripple effects of the Murdochs’ legal in-fighting are certain to reach beyond the family dynasty. It could reshape Fox News — the most-watched TV station in the nation — altering political discourse, public opinion and even the future of American democracy.
Rupert’s vast empire began with one modest paper in Adelaide, Australia — simply named The News — which he inherited from his father. Rupert expanded the business through a series of strategic acquisitions. In 1969, he bought British tabloids News of the World and The Sun, revamping them and driving their sales to record highs. He ventured into the U.S. market when he bought the New York Post in 1976 and solidified his influence on U.S. media with the launch of Fox News in 1996 and the purchase of The Wall Street Journal in 2007. By slashing costs and wielding his political connections, Rupert built a media conglomerate capable of shaping public opinion in Australia, England, the United States and beyond.
Since the question of succession was first raised decades ago, Rupert viewed his three children from his second (and longest) marriage to journalist Anna dePeyester — Elisabeth, Lachlan and James — as the lead contenders. All three showed interest in the family business. But he wanted them to prove themselves first.
Elisabeth was regarded by some as most fit to be her father’s successor, combining both charm and corporate aptitude. She served as managing director of the family’s British Sky Broadcasting, later rebranded as Sky, but left the family business in 2000 to launch a new television production company, Shine.
After striking out on her own, she went on the record to say that she has “no ambition for the top job.” That left Lachlan and James. The brothers are two years apart in age and have long vied for their father’s favor and the prospect of becoming the next Murdoch mogul. In the early aughts, Lachlan appeared to be the favorite — Rupert called him “the first among equals”— until he abruptly moved to Australia with his family after a calamitous fallout with his father. In a series of business decisions at Fox, Rupert had sided with his executive team — who believed Lachlan to be too inexperienced — on a measure to prune Lachlan’s powers at News Corp. Lachlan quit, and father and son were left on each side of the rift.
James swiftly emerged as heir apparent. But he squandered his chances when he got caught up in a phone-hacking scandal in 2011, when journalists at the News of the World illegally hacked into the voicemails of public figures — including celebrities, politicians and members of the British royal family. Leading News Corp’s operations in Europe and Asia at the time, James claimed to be unaware of the practices, but he stepped down amid the controversy. Following James’ resignation, Rupert turned his attention back to Lachlan. After all, Rupert still needed a successor. Lured back by his father, Lachlan arrived back in the United States in 2014.
“Murdoch has sought to figure out who would lead his media empire in a manner that embodies his own drive.”
The back-and-forth of Lachlan and James’ front-runner race sharpened the edge of a family dynamic already laced with corporate viciousness. “Murdoch has sought to figure out who would lead his media empire in a manner that embodies his own drive and his own model in a sense,” says David Folkenflik, NPR news media correspondent and author of “Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires.” “And in doing that he essentially pitted his two sons against each other.”
The rift between the brothers deepened, fueled by their diverging political ideologies. James began distancing himself from conservative politics and became increasingly critical of News Corp’s coverage of climate change and the January 6 insurrection. Meanwhile, some say Lachlan has become even more conservative than Rupert himself. In 2020, James resigned from the News Corp board, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content.” With James’ departure, Lachlan, who did not respond to our request for comment, rose as the undeniable successor.
In his eldest son, Rupert sees a way forward for his political vision. Reece Peck, associate professor of media culture at the College of Staten Island at CUNY and author of “Fox Populism,” likens Rupert to the early 20th-century media tycoons like Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, who used their newspapers to wage their political crusades. “To see them as only businessmen, we’re missing half of the picture,” he says. “There is a deeper kind of cultural, ideological mission at the heart of News Corp’s and Murdoch’s media empire. And who is the most aligned with that ideological mission? It’s Lachlan.”
But the current legal battle around the family trust has cast Lachlan’s succession — and any family harmony the trust had intended to protect — into the mire. Established in 1999 after Murdoch and Anna dePeyester’s divorce, the trust was created to forestall a costly settlement and preserve control over the assets in the family.
“The structure reflects Anna’s desire to protect her children’s succession,” says Alice Enders, media analyst of Enders Analysis in London, who’s followed the Murdoch family for years.
Under the current terms of the trust, each one of dePeyester’s three children — Elisabeth, Lachlan and James, as well as Prudence from Murdoch’s first marriage — has one vote over the company assets. Murdoch has four votes, which, as of now, will be distributed equally between the four children when he dies.
Murdoch’s two youngest daughters, from his third marriage to Wendi Deng, are beneficiaries of the trust but don’t hold any voting rights, despite court records showing that Lachlan and Rupert offered them votes while petitioning to amend the trust. A contest that was once brother versus brother is now Lachlan versus his three eldest siblings.
The odds are not in Lachlan’s favor.
Agreements once intended to preserve “the family business,” have splintered the already-fractured family farther apart.
Although James, Elisabeth and Prudence have assured that they were not seeking to challenge Lachlan’s authority before, they certainly could now. The door is open. With equal control, yet different visions for the company, James and his sisters could, in theory, vote against Lachlan on the board and temper Fox’s approach to the news. They could find a way to sell it altogether. Ultimately, those “coulds” are what’s going to prolong this family’s battle, says Folkenflik. “It’s the fight for Fox News, which is the chief economic engine for the Murdoch fortunes right now.”
In rejecting the proposal, Edmund J. Gorman Jr., Nevada’s 2nd Judicial District Court probate commissioner, wrote that Rupert and Lachlan’s efforts were “an attempt to stack the deck in Lachlan Murdoch’s favor after Rupert Murdoch’s passing so that his succession would be immutable. The play might have worked; but an evidentiary hearing, like a showdown in a game of poker, is where gamesmanship collides with the facts and at its conclusion, all the bluffs are called and the cards lie face up. The court, after considering the facts of this case in the light of the law, sees the cards for what they are and concludes this raw deal will not, over the signature of this probate commissioner, prevail.”
Rupert and Lachlan accused James of orchestrating a coup with Prudence and Elisabeth to oust their eldest brother after Rupert’s death and change the political ideology of the Fox Corporation to be more moderate. Lachlan argued that under his leadership, the family’s media holdings would remain conservative, and therefore profitable, which was to the benefit of all trustees. Prudence, Elisabeth and James objected and, according to the court records obtained by The New York Times, disavowed “any plan to oust their brother” after their father’s death.
While Gorman’s decision is influential, it’s not the last word. Rupert plans to appeal. This litigation could extend for years, experts say, and that could mean that the dispute continues beyond Rupert’s death. What seemed to be the empire’s way forward is now being pulled back, and that’s not what investors want to hear when there are billions of dollars on the line.
“Is Fox News fair and balanced?” Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, asked Lachlan in an on-stage interview in 2017. A hushed chuckle spread across the room. Lachlan didn’t flinch. “Look, I think you gotta look at Fox News. … Is The New York Times fair and balanced?” He went on to underscore the distinction between Fox’s news and opinion sides, emphasizing the channel’s focus on its core conservative audience when it comes to opinion. “There is a gap on the center-right of the market,” he explained. The mainstream media serves the left or center-left audience. “Fox News has found a market to the right, and that’s the strategy.”
That strategy has been undeniably successful, turning Fox News into a powerhouse that has been shaping American political life for 30 years. Initially skeptical of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate in 2016, Rupert came to embrace him, along with the soaring ratings and profits that support for Trump brought to the network. “Rupert decided Trump was the way to go because his audience decided that Trump was the way to go,” says Folkenflik.
Rupert’s — and Lachlan’s — insatiable drive to retain the audience and assert the political influence they’ve grown has dulled any fear of the courtroom. In 2023, Rupert shelled out an eye-watering $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over Fox News’ 2020 election coverage. The company also has weathered other disgraces and upheavals, namely the high-profile sexual harassment scandals involving founder Roger Ailes and commentator Bill O’Reilly, as well as the departures of prominent figures like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. Yet, despite these issues, the Fox audience has remained steadfast. “Fox News is a kind of survivor,” says Jeffrey McCall, media analyst and professor of communications at DePauw University in Indiana. “For the people who watch Fox and rely on them for news, they don’t have too many other places to go.”
“This is the fight for Fox News, the chief economic engine for the Murdoch fortunes.”
What happens to Fox News if it continues to fall out of Rupert or Lachlan’s grasp is a matter of speculation, experts believe. “If they want to continue to have a financial juggernaut which Fox News Channel is and The Wall Street Journal is, they should probably stay the course with regards to how they want to run those news outlets editorially,” says McCall. “If they want to redirect (Fox News) to a different kind of news vision or news agenda — they would be taking a big risk.” He believes Rupert’s conservative enterprise offers a needed counterbalance to the “traditional left-of-center” news industry in the country. “It provides perspectives that would not be found on ABC or The New York Times. It broadens the news agenda.”
Despite the current legal irrevocability of the trust and the diffusion of power between the Murdoch heirs, Enders thinks a transformation of Fox, the “cash cow” of the entire media conglomerate, is unlikely. “This is less about differences in ideology among the four siblings than about the very substantial financial interests of each,” she says. “And who has eventual control of them.”
After the ruling, legacy media institutions published a flurry of stories. Prudence, Elisabeth and James released a statement welcoming the decision and an opportunity to strengthen and rebuild relationships “among all family members.” The drama continues. But despite this recent fuel added to the feud, millions of homes across America will have TV screens alit with Fox News tonight. The network that has defined and energized American conservatism for decades, and the Murdoch dynasty itself, remains. This time, that may be all Rupert Murdoch wants.
This story appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.