Lachlan Murdoch is the eldest boy in Rupert Murdoch's family, the third of six children and, now, one of the most powerful men in the world’s media.
In September Lachlan was confirmed to be the successor to the Murdoch empire – which is important beyond the business given its broad reach and massive political influence, particularly in the US.
As a result of his accession, Lachlan now heads up an empire that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post in the US; The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times in the UK (and, by extension, Ireland).
Murdoch’s NewsCorp also owns radio stations including TalkSport and Times Radio in the UK and FM104, Q102, Live 95 and Cork 96 here in Ireland – as well as a huge number of newspapers and some TV stations in Australia and New Zealand.
Oh, and the book publisher HarperCollins.
But despite his eventual succession success, Lachlan’s path to the top was far from straight-forward.
Was Lachlan always going to be the chosen one?
Not quite - he has been Rupert’s clear favourite for a number of years now, but his position wasn’t always guaranteed.
Rupert’s eldest child – and Lachlan’s half-sister - is Prudence. Next is Elisabeth, then Lachlan, then James (who are full siblings). And after that comes Grace and Chloe – also half sisters to Lachlan (and both around 30 years younger than him).
Lachlan was put in charge of parts of the business from a fairly young age – starting with some Australian newspapers, before being sent over to New York to oversee the likes of the Post and HarperCollins.
But his brother James would also have been given management roles around the same time. His workload also started in Australia - first in music, then digital, before he was moved over to senior roles in its British media operations. At the time that included broadcaster Sky.
(For what it’s worth Prudence never showed much of an interest in the family firm. Elisabeth did but ended up quitting and setting up her own media company... which was eventually acquired by Murdoch’s empire.)
But while both Lachlan and James were in similar management roles in the family business in the early 2000s, there was an assumption at that stage that Lachlan was the heir apparent - though there was nothing official to confirm that.
In fact an agreement struck within the family in 1999 essentially meant that there would be no single heir, or heiress, to Rupert.
Why is that?
As part of Rupert’s divorce with Anna DePeyster (mother of Elisabeth, Lachlan and James), a family trust was established.
That essentially gave each of his four children a vote in business decisions – and while it meant that Rupert still held most of the power, it did create a structure around what would happen when he was no longer around.
Essentially it would mean that no one Murdoch child would be in a position to takeover – or, at the very least, they’d need to have some of their siblings on-side.
And as you can imagine, this becomes a key point of friction in the years that follow.
How quickly did problems around the trust start to emerge?
Clearly the aim of setting up the trust was to avoid any messy in-fighting around control and money – but it completely fails in that regard. Almost immediately, actually.
That’s in part because, right after his divorce, Rupert marries his new partner, Wendi Deng. Two years later they have a child – Grace - followed by Chloe in 2003.
That prompts Rupert to seek changes to the trust agreement to include his newest arrivals.
He wants to ensure that all of his children are looked after financially – but doing so will essentially mean diluting the share the other four get, and so it creates tensions – particularly with Lachlan.
In the end he has to pay the four off to get his Grace and Chloe included – reportedly to the tune of $150m each – though the two youngest do not get a voting share.
And that’s one of the factors behind Lachlan’s decision to quit the company in 2005. Though it's not the only one.
The ultimate spark seems to have been a row Lachlan had with the eventually disgraced and now deceased Fox executive Roger Ailes – a row in which Rupert sided with Ailes.
Lachlan was also seemingly frustrated that his efforts within the company weren’t being rewarded with more authority and control. Bear in mind that Rupert was 74 years old at this point, and following the establishment of the trust many assumed he was starting to transition himself out of the business. But, six years, on he remained very much in control.
However, Rupert didn’t seem to think Lachlan was ready to take the helm and was reportedly unhappy with his eldest son’s work ethic.
That included irritation at him taking paid time off work to go on holiday. He had also been spending time with his wife and newborn son in Australia, which was unacceptable to Rupert.
So that left James as the heir apparent?
Yes – with Lachlan out of the frame the assumption was that James would now be the one to inherit the business.
At this stage he was CEO of BskyB – and he became executive chairman of News International – the group’s UK and Ireland print operations - in 2007.
But James’ apparent ascent to the top hit the skids due to the phone hacking scandal. That had been bubbling under the surface for years – but really exploded into the mainstream around 2009 and 2010.
It eventually led to multiple new police investigations and a wider political scandal – which James Murdoch tried to get control of through the closure of the News of the World in mid-2011. And while Rupert initially backed James’ decision to close the Sunday newspaper, he quickly grew to regret the move.
The scandal also scuppered Rupert Murdoch’s attempted full takeover of BskyB – which didn’t help James’ case as heir.
In 2012 he stepped down as head of the British newspaper business – with Rupert coming back to take control again.
At the time it was reported that James was being freed up to focus on the company’s non-US broadcast business – but just a week later he stepped down as chairman of BskyB. Given that this was the jewel in the crown of the group, it represented a clear signal from the top about James’ damaged reputation.
In 2015, he did replace his father as CEO of 21st Century Fox, which was a very big part of the Murdoch empire at the time, but at that stage it was already clear that James was yesterday’s man.
Why is that?
Having spent the best part of a decade in exile (heading up a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm), Lachlan returned to the family fold in 2014.
He was apparently convinced to come back by his father, and it was assumped that this was Rupert finally starting to put together a formal succession plan.
He took up non-executive roles at both Fox and News Corp – and then, four years later, was named as the man to lead what was to be left of 21st Century Fox once the bulk of that company was acquired by Disney. This was despite the fact that James was still technically in charge of the business.
Taking the lead of that business essentially put him in control of Fox Sport, a network of local stations and – most importantly – Fox News.
And was a clear signal that Lachlan was Rupert’s pick for the future of the business. Not only is Fox News hugely popular in the US, it carries a huge amount of political power as a result.
But it wasn’t just James’ decision to shutter the News of the World that seems to have scuppered his chances of running the business – it was also the fact that he was seen as a bit too liberal for Rupert’s tastes.
He was becoming increasingly critical of Fox News’ coverage – particularly on topics like climate change.
Lachlan, meanwhile, was seen to be far closer to his father in terms of ideology – or at the very least willing to go with whatever ideology was best for his career, and the business.
James eventually resigned from the family firm in 2020, citing editorial differences.
And in 2023, Lachlan was announced as chairman of both Fox News and News Corp – formally cementing his position as Rupert’s successor.
But what about the trust?
This is where things got particularly messy.
With Lachlan’s succession on the horizon, Rupert had already begun to worry about what he saw as the risk the trust posed to his business and his legacy.
Because while Lachlan was of a similar ideology to him, his three other eldest children were more liberal. Rupert worried that, after he died, they could band together and oust Lachlan, or force its outlets to moderate their tone. Or, he feared, they could just sell the business for parts.
To avoid that, Rupert and Lachlan moved to try and resolve this in 2023 – with what was ironically titled 'Project Family Harmony’.
That began as an attempt to secretly change the terms of the trust to cement Lachlan’s control of the business. But the others got wind of it and launched a legal challenge.
That case concluded last year when a Nevada commissioner accused Lachlan and Rupert of acting in bad faith in their attempts to change the ownership rules.
And with the legal route closed to them, the family were forced to sit down and hammer out an agreement – the results of which was announced in September.
What it boiled down to was Lachlan and Rupert getting out the chequebook - reportedly paying the other siblings $1.1 billion each to relinquish their share of the business.
The company continuing in Rupert’s image has huge political significance, doesn’t it?
Absolutely – Murdoch’s media empire has had a huge impact on politics and public opinion for decades, particularly in the UK, US and Australia.
Even long before they claimed ‘it was the Sun wot won it’ in 1992 – all the way through to the Brexit referendum.
Meanwhile, in the US, Fox News has long been quite influential in US politics – particularly within the Republican party. But that’s gone into overdrive in the past decade thanks to Donald Trump.
Even before his first term in office, he showed a huge amount of interest in what Fox News was doing – and it would often be the case that Fox would report on a story, and then Trump would tweet about it immediately afterwards.
It was as if the channel had a direct line to the president.
But it turns out it had an actual direct line to the president, too, with Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump said to have regular – even weekly - phone calls.
Trump also recently said that Lachlan and Rupert would likely be a part of his bid to remove Chinese control from TikTok in the US.
That’s despite it being widely reported that both Rupert and Lachlan aren’t big fans of Trump. Rupert allegedly called him an "f***ing idiot" after one of their phone chats. Lachlan reportedly had toilet paper with Trump’s face on it in the lead up to the 2016 election.
And Rupert famously attempted to shift Fox News away from Trump after he lost in 2020 – something which drew ire from Trump himself, who was irked by Fox’s refusing to go along with his ‘stolen election’ claims.
Meanwhile, former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson has claimed Lachlan urged him to run in the 2024 election to block Trump’s comeback.
And while there’s no denying the continuing power of the Murdoch empire, that attempted shift away from Trump perhaps shows its limits – as well as the pragmatism of Lachlan.
Because despite trying to move on, once it became clear that Trump would continue to be a major political force in US politics, Fox quickly rowed back in behind the MAGA movement.
