After banishing his troublesome siblings, Lachlan Murdoch is finally sitting comfortably on the familial throne as successor to the aging king. But as the dust settles, there is an unmistakable sense of unease about what lies ahead.
On the surface, everyone seemed a winner from the hard-fought recent deal that settled the Murdoch family business. Rupert Murdoch installed his like-minded, eldest son, Lachlan, as heir, thus preserving what he has called the “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world.” The more liberal-minded siblings James, Elisabeth and Prudence each walked away with a $1.1 billion windfall from an empire whose politics they often found distasteful.
Like succession wars of old, compromises had to be made and power frayed. Winning over his siblings means Lachlan Murdoch, as head of the new family holding, is taking on a hefty debt pile. He also had to agree to something his father always fought to avoid: watering down the family’s control of Fox and News Corp. And let’s not forget the familial casualties. Siblings lost siblings. A nonagenarian father estranged three of his six children by putting business firmly before family.
All of which raises the question: Was it worth it? The throne is certainly less comfortably gilded than it once was. In 2019, Rupert Murdoch sold off the family’s 21st Century Fox entertainment assets to Disney. The remaining kingdom — Fox Corporation, which owns the namesake news channel, and News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins — isn’t as powerful as the company Mr. Murdoch famously put his stamp on and is fast becoming overshadowed by empire-building rivals. Flagship properties including Fox News may not continue to have the same influence in politics as social media, podcasts and influencers muscle in.
Mr. Murdoch long urged his eldest son to use his $2 billion Disney payout to “bet on yourself” by buying out his siblings so they could not challenge his leadership. It’s something he did back in the day, when he seized on a depressed stock price to orchestrate an exit of his relatives from what was then the family trust.
Lachlan Murdoch initially resisted, deeming such a move not financially viable. But Lachlan and his father grew nervous that his siblings James, Elisabeth and Prudence might have been plotting to overthrow him and tone down the empire’s conservative voice. Father and loyalist son moved to force through a change to the family trust that would secure Lachlan’s control; the case ended up in court in the onetime divorce capital, Reno; they lost. That was the impetus needed to return to the negotiating table, and in the end, money talked.
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The post Congratulations, Lachlan Murdoch. You Won a Fading Empire and a Pile of Debt. appeared first on New York Times.
