In a finale so dramatic it seems plucked straight from a script, the Murdoch Family has settled its long-running battle over who will take the crown in its sprawling media kingdom. The deal dropped on September 8, 2025, and it puts Lachlan Murdoch in charge the minute his 94-year-old father, Rupert, takes his final bow. This wrap-up of the real-life version of HBO’s Succession not only reshapes one of the globe’s most powerful media dynasties but also locks in a right-leaning editorial compass that should steer the empire for decades.
The Murdoch family feud has long been a favorite topic among journalists and gossip-hungry onlookers. The final act arrived only after a nasty courtroom showdown that dragged out raw family tensions and clashing political beliefs for all to see. In the end, the deal keeps intact the vision that Rupert painstakingly built from tiny Australian outposts to a worldwide behemoth and hands the compass to Lachlan, who has always been Dad’s pick to chart the next voyage.
The $3.3 Billion Family Truce.
At the center of the deal is a nearly $3.3 billion cash payment that locks Rupert Murdoch’s other children out of any future power in the business. Lachlan’s brother and sisters—James, Elisabeth, and Prudence—will each take home just over $1.1 billion. By accepting the payout, they give up their shares in the Murdoch Family empire and sign a long-term agreement that keeps them from buying stock in Fox Corp or News Corp and from contesting Lachlan’s leadership.
The money came from selling around 16.9 million shares of Fox Corp Class B stock and 14.2 million shares of News Corp Class B stock, both sold at about a 4.5% discount to the last market price. That transaction raised close to $1.37 billion, enough to fund the buyout and keep the control stake in the Murdoch family’s hands.
A fresh family trust worth about $3.3 billion is being set up for Lachlan and his two younger sisters, Grace and Chloe Murdoch, whose mother is Wendi Deng Murdoch. Inside this trust will sit 36% of the Class B voting stock of Fox and 33% of the Class B voting stock of News Corp, giving the kids controlling power over both companies. What really matters is that the voting rights for these shares will go “exclusively” to Lachlan Murdoch, sealing his hold.
A Legal Showdown in Reno
The deal to set up the trust didn’t just appear overnight. It took shape in Reno, Nevada, late last year, in a courtroom that kept its curtains tightly drawn. Things heated up in 2023, when Rupert Murdoch tried to change family rules he had set after his 1999 divorce from Anna Murdoch.
Back then he had created an unchangeable Murdoch Family trust that said his four oldest kids—Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James—would get equal voting shares of News Corp and Fox when he died. Rupert worried that James, Elisabeth, and Prudence would team up to push Lachlan—the only Murdoch who thinks like his father—out of power. He decided to rewrite the rules to narrow the voting to Lachlan and to stop any moves from the other siblings that might threaten his son’s grasp on the empire.
The scheme referred to inside the family as “Project Family Harmony” quickly backfired, throwing the siblings James, Elisabeth, and Prudence into court before the ink was even dry. The case, styled In the Matter of the Doe 1 Trust, was filed in Nevada on the grounds that the state has the simplest and most private probate process in the country.
Commissioner Edmund Gorman’s slam-dunk came last December. He declared on the record that Rupert and Lachlan had moved “in bad faith” and that their effort to rewrite the trust was little more than a “brilliantly suspected play” to “fortify Lachlan Murdoch’s lifelong executive crown.” The opinion paved the way for a round of backroom huddle that eventually bore fruit not long ago.
The foundational conflict inside the clan lightens the spreadsheets of trust and turns them into deeper drama. Beyond the distrust between the siblings, the war is a contest of competing visions on journalism itself, with the blueprints and institutions first conquered a hundred years ago now up for moral auction. The battle in each of Murdoch’s newspapers is, in a way, a reflection of the battle for the soul of the brand itself.
Lachlan Murdoch is seen as the son who shares his father’s conservative beliefs the most. Together with Rupert, he helped turn Fox News into the loudest megaphone for the American right. That influence shaped U.S. politics, especially during the Trump years, when the network often served as a main stage for the administration.
On the other hand, James Murdoch has not held back in criticizing the family’s channels. He has denounced their coverage of the January 6 Capitol riots, their climate denial, and their steadfast loyalty to Trump. When he spoke in a rare interview, he labeled Fox a “menace” to American democracy and confessed he rarely talks to Rupert these days.
This deep divide did more than just create family tension; it turned their private succession talks into a full-blown cultural showdown. Rupert has put it bluntly, calling his firms the “guardian of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world” and insisting that only Lachlan can defend that title.
The New Order: Lachlan’s Reign and the Empire’s Path Ahead
Now that the legal drama has reached its finale, Lachlan Murdoch remains the one true monarch of a media empire that stretches from Wall Street to the Pacific, crossing cable, print, and digital borders. In his roles as executive chair of Fox Corp and chair of News Corp, his mission is clear: steer the twin titans toward a united strategy that still bristles with ambition.
In classic corporate choreography, the entities moved to formalize his rule. News Corp’s board quickly showered praise, declaring that Lachlan’s “vision and management” are “needed more than ever to chart the Company’s strategy and success”. The language suggests a smooth ride, at least for public consumption.
Shareholders, meanwhile, sigh with relief. Lachlan’s stewardship promises continuity and a guardian for Fox News’s unmistakably conservative core. Claire Enders of Enders Analysis put it plainly: “If I had shares, I’d consider this a vote of confidence”. Economists and terminals, for the moment, look the other way.
Yet the victory is not universally celebrated. Andrew Dodd from the University of Melbourne argued the deal is “bad news” for a media ecosystem that craves competition and diversity. In his view, it locks in a major swath of the landscape likely to remain “right-wing and reactionary”. Such warnings haunt the sidelines, but at the moment they remain, to borrow a phrase, background noise to Murdoch’s global empire theme song.
The latest trust for the Murdoch dynasty is locked in until 2050. The setup looks like a runway being slowly raised for the Murdoch Family’s next generation. Lachlan’s three—Kalan, Aidan, and Aerin—sit at the far end, where the liftoff date is creeping closer. They’ll have to decide who will grab the stick and steer the family carrier someday. A new saga still looks possible.
The Final Bow for a Modern Media Dynasty
This tidy new arrangement puts the curtain down on the latest Murdoch drama. The backstage bickering—personal, public, and protracted—has charred the newsrooms and drawing rooms of the clan for a long time. The $3.3 billion payout clears the stage for James, Elisabeth, and Prudence and tethers the mast of the family papers and channels even tighter to conservative winds, a signal that the last pages in this particular dynasty saga may soon still be Lever Pressed.
The story of the Murdoch family shows us how tight-knit family ties, massive riches, and worldwide reach can shape the same events. Though the struggle for who runs the empire is finished, Lachlan Murdoch’s direction is bound to ripple through the media and the political scenes for decades. The family has picked its course, and now the globe is paying attention.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/08/media/murdoch-lachlan-rupert-succession-court
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