Rupert Murdoch's Succession Plan Triggers Family Feud

Rupert Murdoch is engaged in a legal fight with some of his children, as he tries to hand control of his media empire to his eldest son, Lachlan, a battle with major ramifications for the future of the mogul’s two companies.

The Wall Street Journal reports the 93-year0old Murdoch controls a trust that holds the family’s substantial stakes in News Corp, parent of The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News parent Fox Corp. Under its terms, when Murdoch dies, voting control would pass to four children—Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence.

Recently, the elder Murdoch sought to amend the trust to consolidate power in Lachlan Murdoch’s hands, according to people familiar with the situation. He encountered stiff resistance from the three other children who were slated to inherit some control of the trust.

That has sparked a legal battle that is playing out in a Nevada probate court, a person familiar with the case said. Murdoch has argued that the changes he is seeking to make to the trust are warranted because they will be in the interest of all stakeholders, some of the people familiar with the situation said.

Any restructuring of the trust would have significant implications for decision-making at the top of the Murdoch empire, including any major mergers or other strategic transactions News Corp and Fox pursue.

As it stands, the siblings would each have a say on how to exercise influence with the family’s roughly 40% voting stakes in each company. If Lachlan Murdoch consolidates control of the trust, he could move faster to push the company in his desired direction.

The family battle has been years in the making. Murdoch has always sought to keep his media enterprise in the family’s hands, and he brought several of his children into the business over the years. At one point he dubbed Lachlan “first among equals,” and as time went on, that became apparent.

Lachlan began his career at News Corp in 1994 and rose through the ranks. He abruptly left in 2005 after clashing with other senior Fox executives and feeling undercut by his father, but returned years later, and continued his climb, eventually becoming the chief executive of Fox.

James, Murdoch’s younger son, once seemed to be the heir apparent. But relations between him and his father deteriorated over the years, and after Lachlan returned and the elder Murdoch sold a chunk of Fox to Disney in 2019, James’s career hit a roadblock.