A year ago, Rupert Murdoch resolved the long-running fight over which of his children would control his sprawling media empire, ending a bitter legal battle and anointing his eldest son, Lachlan, as his successor. Now, court documents have offered a rare glimpse into the family’s clashes before the decision, revealing the patriarch’s view of son James as a troublemaker who had to be ousted from the business and detailing tensions between Murdoch’s four eldest children and their airing of “petty grievances” about their father. A crucial decision by a Nevada judicial officer in late 2024, recently made public, exposes the friction among Murdoch’s heirs and includes direct references to the HBO drama series Succession, which was purportedly inspired by the media family.
The reasoning of the probate commissioner, Edmund Gorman, sheds light on the motive behind Murdoch’s attempt to modify a family trust and put his eldest son, Lachlan, in charge of the media empire. The bitter legal battle ended when a deal was reached last year. Murdoch testified at length about his intended legacy, according to the Nevada decision, which he said included preserving Fox and News Corp as what he described as alternative conservative voices in the media.
In correspondence released to the court, the 95-year-old said it would be a disaster if the assets fell into the “wrong hands” and that Fox and News Corp’s voice were “essential for democracies”. Murdoch had encouraged Lachlan to buy out his siblings’ stakes as early as 2019 so he would take over after his father’s death. Each was willing to sell but Lachlan did not offer them enough money, the commissioner found.
James drew heavy media attention when he quit the News board in July 2020, citing disagreements over editorial content. He had previously criticised coverage of climate change in the family’s outlets. According to the published decision, Murdoch told the court he believed James was “making trouble” and “creating speculation” about succession at the company.
The Murdoch family interests include numerous media assets, including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, The Times in the UK and a suite of mastheads in Australia including The Australian, news.com.au and News24 (formerly Sky). Murdoch told the court James should be cut off from the trust controlling the family stake in the companies because he and his sisters, Prudence and Elisabeth, had planned to oust Lachlan and change the companies’ direction after the patriarch’s death. As evidence for the supposed scheme, Rupert cited a memo written by Elisabeth’s representative on the trust after watching the Succession episode where patriarch Logan Roy dies and his business is thrown into chaos.
The commissioner found that memo in fact appeared to suggest appointing a mediator a to ensure a “sensible outcome”. Lachlan had fuelled Rupert’s “false assumption” about James’s behaviour and “falsely told his father, without proof” that James had spoken to Australian reporter Paddy Manning for his book The Successor, the commissioner found. Lachlan did not tell Rupert that his own lieutenant, the Australia Post chair Siobhan McKenna, had provided more than 14 hours of interviews for that book with Lachlan’s permission.
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