On July 28, President Donald Trump’s attorneys filed an pressing movement in federal court docket demanding the expedited deposition of Rupert Murdoch—a transfer justified, they argued, by each Murdoch’s central position in Information Corp’s decision-making and his allegedly precarious well being.
Murdoch is 94. He may die at any second, Trump’s attorneys argued.
The authorized maneuver, related to the president’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit towards the mogul and the Wall Road Journal over a narrative about Trump’s alleged letter to Jeffrey Epstein, has thrown the king of contemporary media’s longevity and his empire’s future into query.
Trump’s attorneys appear to imagine the titan is in no situation to testify at trial, citing a litany of well being points together with a extreme again damage, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, a torn Achilles tendon, a severe case of COVID-19 in 2022, and an incident in February 2025 when Murdoch collapsed and fainted at breakfast with a journalist.
“Taken collectively, these components weigh closely in figuring out that Murdoch can be unavailable for in-person testimony at trial,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
For many years, Murdoch’s iron grip steered titanic property—Fox Company and Information Corp—throughout continents, via scandal, boardroom intrigue, and relentless media cycles. But the court docket’s deal with his fragility, and the authorized assertion that his management has been contingent on his potential to behave, accelerates what may turn out to be the defining story of the subsequent period in world media: the fractious, unsure, and high-stakes succession battle for one of the highly effective empires in information and leisure.
A lot of the Murdoch media dynasty’s destiny hangs within the stability of the Murdoch Household Belief. Established in 1999, after Rupert’s second divorce, the belief was created to manage the household’s vital stake and voting energy in each Fox Company and Information Corp. Though the belief owns solely about 14% of Information Corp’s fairness, it controls roughly 40-41% of the corporate’s voting shares, giving the Murdoch household efficient management over these main media companies via a dual-share construction.
Tom Stoddart—Getty Photographs
The belief was designed in order that Rupert himself holds 4 votes throughout his lifetime, whereas his 4 eldest kids—Lachlan, James, Elisabeth, and Prudence—maintain one vote every. Upon Rupert’s demise, his 4 votes shall be distributed equally to those 4 kids, so every will then have two votes, guaranteeing shared management. In the meanwhile, Lachlan is the only real chair of Information Corp and the CEO of Fox Company, having taken over for his father after his retirement in 2023.
In the end, the belief permits the Murdoch household to manage its media empire by concentrating voting energy among the many 4 eldest kids following Rupert’s demise. However its irrevocability and the precept of equal management have sparked ongoing authorized and familial battle that stand to jeopardize the media powerhouse Murdoch constructed.
In late 2023, Murdoch tried to change the belief to grant sole posthumous management to his eldest son, Lachlan, permitting him to take over the household enterprise totally. This transfer was legally contested by the opposite three kids, who argued it violated the unique mandate of equal management. A Nevada probate court docket dominated in December 2024 towards Rupert’s try, however the mogul’s authorized workforce has since filed an enchantment.
“Lachlan is having to pay his siblings a better and better worth to get out of his approach. … So he’s in an actual bind.”Paddy Manning, Australian journalist and Lachlan biographer
The belief additionally accommodates a 2030 expiration date that has solely contributed to the continued contentious household dynamics that influence the Murdochs’ companies. The deadline may resolve the destiny of Fox Company and Information Corp. Ought to the belief expire, its phrases and centralized construction will dissolve, forcing the Murdoch heirs to find out amongst themselves the long run construction of possession and management over the household’s immense property.
Above all, the authorized battle over the belief has prompted an immense divide within the household. Lachlan and Rupert’s try to keep up management has galvanized Lachlan’s three different siblings. “They’ve unified them in a approach that they weren’t unified earlier than and so it has been in some methods a miscalculation,” Australian journalist and Lachlan biographer Paddy Manning instructed Fortune.
Given the lengthy historical past of Murdoch sibling infighting, succession in a post-Rupert world stands to have vital impacts on the media empire. With management of the companies passing equally to the 4 eldest kids, boardroom gridlock—if the siblings are unable to succeed in consensus—may probably paralyze key enterprise selections. And ongoing household divisions might shake shareholder confidence.
Majority guidelines
Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff foresees Lachlan’s three vote-holding siblings in the end aligning towards him and relieving him of his command over Information Corp and Fox, and finally an implosion of the Murdoch media empire we all know at the moment.
“The voice of the three would rule. And proper now that seems to be that the three would relieve their brother of management after which make a willpower about what occurred to the remaining property,” he instructed Fortune. (James, it’s value noting, has denied there has even been a secret conspiracy between the siblings to unseat Lachlan in a uncommon interview with the Atlantic.)
The youngsters, Wolff predicts, will then unload among the property, specifically these inside Information Corp which incorporates the Wall Road Journal and the Instances of London, and James may take over and pivot the editorial slant of Fox Information.
“This all comes all the way down to 4 individuals, and whether or not they get alongside or they don’t get alongside.”Michael Wolff, Murdoch biographer
James, who’s deeply concerned in social-justice initiatives and left-leaning politics, has lengthy been outspoken about his deep disagreements with the editorial route of each Information Corp and Fox Information, having resigned from the Information Corp board in 2020, explicitly citing “disagreements over sure editorial content material printed by the Firm’s information shops and sure different strategic selections.” In interviews, he’s criticized his household’s enterprise for “legitimizing disinformation.”
James Murdoch declined a Fortune request for remark.
Even when James had been to take over Fox, he would face an uphill battle with the Fox Company board that has aligned itself with Lachlan and Rupert’s imaginative and prescient. Since taking on, Lachlan has appointed two of his personal administrators, together with former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Based on Manning: Abbott’s position on the board is basically to buttress Lachlan’s management. And shareholders, Manning instructed Fortune, can be fairly involved a couple of technique that tampered with the editorial line, or the programming, in a approach that would dilute its earnings potential.
Fox Company declined a Fortune request for remark.
As for the remaining companies within the Murdoch portfolio, discovering an acceptable purchaser for the myriad lesser-known property inside Information Corp can be a big enterprise. The Wall Road Journal, Wolff stated, can be considerably of an exception. “You may have self-importance consumers to strategic consumers,” he added, throwing Michael Bloomberg’s title into the combo.
Information Corp didn’t reply to a Fortune request for remark.
Billion-dollar buyout:
Acquiescing to his siblings isn’t Lachlan’s sole possibility. The eldest Murdoch son may purchase out his siblings, however previous makes an attempt, in 2019 and 2023, had been unsuccessful. Lachlan has by no means been prepared to supply his siblings greater than 60% of the market worth of their shares.
Manning sees Lachlan shopping for out his siblings as essentially the most logical transfer, one made by Rupert himself within the Nineteen Nineties. However, in response to Manning, Lachlan’s profitable management at Fox and Information Corp would permit his siblings to ask a excessive worth, into the a number of billions of {dollars}, for management of the businesses.
“Lachlan is having to pay his siblings a better and better worth to get out of his approach, and he’s having to pay them for successfully the fruits of his technique, which they’ve criticized. So he’s in an actual bind,” Manning instructed Fortune.
Below Lachlan’s management, Fox Company’s inventory has carried out properly, even rising all through the preliminary months of his appointment. Though the inventory has seen some fluctuation as a consequence of ongoing authorized battles, its worth reached an all-time excessive of $58 in February 2025. In its third-quarter monetary reporting, the corporate disclosed $4.37 billion in revenues, a 27% year-over-year improve.
As for Information Corp’s efficiency, the corporate’s inventory has soared, reflecting regular monetary efficiency and robust development. In 2024, the corporate’s earnings jumped practically 79%.
Jackie Luna—REUTERS/Redux
Enterprise as regular
Creator and journalist Claire Atkinson, who has coated the Murdochs extensively and is writing a forthcoming e-book on the media dynasty, factors to Lachlan’s enterprise wins as a possible purpose for Lachlan’s siblings to permit him to stay in management. She doesn’t view sweeping modifications to the Murdoch companies as inevitable following Rupert’s demise.
“Lachlan has run it for greater than 5 years. The shares have completed higher than different media shares,” she instructed Fortune.
Apart from the inventory’s efficiency, Lachlan has additionally helped propel Fox Information’ success. Fox Information stays the top-rated cable information channel, main primetime and outpacing ABC, NBC, and CBS. And he has continued Fox’s enlargement into streaming following the corporate’s 2020 acquisition of Tubi, which as of July 2025, has since surpassed 100 million month-to-month lively customers.
However past Lachlan’s success, Atkinson doesn’t see Elisabeth and James trying to reclaim energy at their household’s enterprise. “They’ve obtained these billion-dollar fortunes of their very own to create no matter media corporations they need,” she stated, one thing Elisabeth has lengthy been doing. The youngest Murdoch daughter began her world TV and movie manufacturing and growth firm, Sister Footage, in 2019.
Elisabeth Murdoch didn’t instantly return a Fortune request for remark.
Whatever the potential outcomes, each Atkinson and Manning count on Lachlan to battle tooth and nail to stay inheritor to the Murdoch empire. “I don’t see him stepping apart or stepping down or relinquishing that place anytime quickly in any respect. I believe he’s completely dedicated to his position,” Atkinson stated.
Wolff, nonetheless, questions Lachlan’s willingness to go above and past for management over the companies. “There’s all the time the sense that he would moderately be doing one thing else, spear fishing,” he stated, referring to Lachlan’s favourite passion.
How arduous Lachlan must battle to stay atop his father’s enterprise is in the end dependent upon his siblings, with whom his relationships have been strained by the burden of the Murdoch legacy and divided beliefs.
“This all comes all the way down to 4 individuals, and whether or not they get alongside or they don’t get alongside, and no matter lodging they will come to with one another. Nothing else issues, nothing besides what these 4 individuals will need at a given second in time,” Wolff stated.
