Murdoch family settles suit over trust, puts Lachlan on top

[NEW YORK] Rupert Murdoch’s family settled litigation over a trust that holds controlling interests in its two major media holdings: Fox and News, putting Lachlan Murdoch in charge of the family empire.

Under the settlement, three of Murdoch’s children,Prudence, Elisabeth and James, will cease to be beneficiaries of the trust, according to a statement on Monday (Sep 8). Instead, they will receive proceeds from the sale of Class B stock in Fox and News Corp.

The legal fight between the family members led to speculation about the direction the company would take after the death of Rupert, now 94. In his pleadings, the elder Murdoch had suggested the Fox News Channel’s successful conservative approach might be at risk if more liberal siblings of Lachlan were to gain control of the company.

The three children leaving the trust will get about US$1.4 billion, based on the current prices of Fox and News Corp shares. Under the agreement, the trust will sell 16.9 million shares of Class B Fox shares and 14.2 million of that class of News Corp stock.

A new family holding company controlled by Lachlan will own 36.2 per cent of the Class B stock in Fox and 33.1 per cent of that class in News Corp, the statement said. Those are the shares that give the family control over the two businesses. Prudence, Elisabeth and James will no longer have any interest in the two companies.

The litigation stemmed from efforts by Rupert, the family patriarch and founder of the media empire, to change a family trust and hand sole control to Lachlan, 54, Fox’s chief executive officer.

But a probate commissioner in Reno, Nevada, ruled against the proposed change. Murdoch had chosen his eldest son as his successor, with Lachlan becoming CEO of Fox in 2018 and taking over as chairman of News Corp in 2023 after Murdoch stepped down from the position. That ruling was being appealed.

Fox operates both the Fox broadcast network and the Fox News Channel. News Corp is the parent of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, among other publications.

Both companies have thrived in recent years.

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Fox News is the most-watched US cable news channel. The conservative network has gotten a ratings lift from US President Donald Trump’s 2024 election. Fox also launched a new streaming service called Fox One for news, sports and entertainment on Aug 21.

Shares of Fox are up 29 per cent this year.

Even though the newspaper industry has been hard hit by declines in print advertising and readership, The Wall Street Journal has successfully adapted to the digital era. News Corp reported in its most recent earnings that the Journal increased its digital subscribers by 9 per cent to 4.1 million during the fiscal fourth quarter.

News Corp shares have gained 8.7 per cent in 2025.

Murdoch controls about 40 per cent of the voting rights in both Fox and News Corp Upon his death, the trust would have divided voting power equally among his four oldest children: Prudence, Lachlan, Elisabeth and James. Each would have been granted a single vote. All six of his kids, including his two daughters from his third marriage to Wendi Deng, were supposed to receive the same equity stake from the Murdoch family trust.

Lachlan is widely viewed as holding the same conservative political views as his father and has made some shrewd decisions while leading the companies, including purchasing the Tubi streaming service for US$440 million in 2020 and launching Fox One.

However, Fox also agreed to pay US$787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit by voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems Inc. over the network’s 2020 election broadcasts. Fox still faces a similar US$2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from voting technology company Smartmatic USA.

During the trust battle, Murdoch presented concerns that Lachlan’s more politically liberal siblings could push Fox in a more moderate direction. He argued that changing the trust to hand power to Lachlan would benefit his kids because it would prevent Lachlan’s siblings from hurting Fox News’ value as a conservative news outlet.

The probate commissioner who ruled against Murdoch determined that he had acted in “bad faith” when he tried to change the trust. BLOOMBERG