Oin the afternoon On July 2, 2022, Rupert Murdoch’s black Range Rover stopped at a 12th-century stone church in Westwell, a fairytale village in the Cotswolds, 75 miles west of London. The then 91-year-old chairman of the Fox Corporation traveled to the countryside of Oxfordshire to attend the wedding of his 21-year-old granddaughter Charlotte Freud. Invitations instructed the 70 guests to wear “formal theatrical” attire. Murdoch emerged from his SUV looking like Tom Wolfe in a white suit, red suede shoes, and red tie. Then he nearly collapsed.
A day earlier, Murdoch was in bed at Cromwell Hospital in London battling a serious case of COVID-19, two sources close to him said. Over the course of a week, doctors treated Murdoch’s symptoms — labored breathing and fatigue — with supplemental oxygen and antibodies, one of the sources said. His recovery was frustratingly slow. At the wedding, Murdoch needed the help of his eldest son, Lachlan, to keep him going. “Rupert was very weak. Lachlan held him up to get him.” from place to place,” one guest recalled.
COVID was just the most recent medical emergency that sent Murdoch to the hospital. In recent years, Murdoch has had a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation and a torn Achilles tendon, a source close to the mogul told me. Many of these episodes went unnoticed in the press, which was exactly how Murdoch liked it. found. Murdoch diligently avoids any discussion of a future where he is not in command of his media empire. at the age of 69. He reminds people that his mother, Dame Elisabeth, lived to 103 (“I’m sure he will never retire,” she told me when I interviewed her in 2010, one day after her 101st birthday). But unlike the politicians Murdoch has bullied into submission with his tabloids, human biology is unwavering. “There’s been a joke in the family for a long time that 40 might be the new 30, but 80 is 80,” said a source close to Murdoch. He turned 92 on March 11.
Media magnate Rupert Murdoch, surrounded by (clockwise from top left) his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, ex-fiancée Ann Lesley Smith, and sons James and Lachlan Murdoch. Illustration by Risko.
Although he is a non-year-old man who wants to live forever, Murdoch is consumed with the question of his succession. He has long wanted one of his three children from his second wife, Anna-Elisabeth, 54, Lachlan, 51, and James , 50-to one day take over the company. Murdoch believed that a Darwinian struggle would produce the most capable heir. “He pitted his kids against each other all their lives. It’s sad,” said a person close to the family. Elisabeth was the sharpest, according to many, but she is a woman, and Murdoch subscribed to the old-fashioned primogeniture. She left the family business in 2000 and launched her own phenomenally successful television production company. Lachlan shared Murdoch’s right-wing political and atavistic love of news: “Lachlan was the golden child,” said the person close to the family. But Murdoch worried that his easy-going son, who seemed happiest mountain climbing, didn’t want the top job badly enough. In 2005, Lachlan, then deputy chief operating officer of News Corp, resigned and moved back to Sydney after a clash with Fox News chief Roger Ailes and chief operating officer Peter Chernin. This left James the heir to the throne. For the next decade, James rose through the ranks, vowing to make the Murdoch empire carbon neutral and investing in prestigious media brands like Hulu and the National Geographic Channel. But James’s liberal politics and desire to make News Corp respectable in highbrow circles put Murdoch in the ranks, who continued to court Lachlan with Ahab-like determination. In 2015, the eldest son returned from Australia as his father’s heir. “It was a big slap in the face,” said a person close to James.
Ascending and holding the throne are different proposals. Lachlan’s future will be decided by his siblings, all of whom sit on the board of the trust that controls the company through a special class of shares. According to sources briefed on the trust’s Murdoch has four votes , while Elisabeth, Lachlan, James and Prudence, Murdoch’s daughter from his first marriage, have one each. Murdoch’s daughters Chloe and Grace from his third marriage to Wendi Deng have a financial interest but no voting rights. After Murdoch’s death, his votes will be split evenly between the four oldest children, the source said. “The question is, when Rupert dies, how are the kids aligned?” said a former News Corp executive.
The central fault line remains the gap between James and Lachlan. According to sources, the brothers no longer speak. James is shocked by Fox News and tells people that the network’s embrace of climate denial, white nationalism and stolen election plots is an American for democracy. But to overthrow Lachlan and take control of Fox, James needs Elisabeth and Prudence to help him support – and that is hardly certain. “James is a lone wolf,” said the former News Corp. executive. Politically, Elisabeth is liberal, but she has stayed close to Rupert and Lachlan; she was in a box with the couple at the Super Bowl. A person close to Elisabeth says she wants to enjoy the time she has left with her father. “She’s terrified of Rupert dying angry at her,” the source said. Prudence, who has stayed out of the family business, “is a wild card,” the former News Corp. executive said.
As the finale unfolds, Murdoch tries to prove he has one last act up his sleeve, but his erratic performance, which has thrown his personal life and media empire into disarray, has even those close to him wondering if he the plot is gone. , Murdoch abruptly left his fourth wife, model-actor Jerry Hall. This spring, he was engaged for two short weeks to Ann Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old former dental hygienist turned conservative radio host with QAnon-style politics. (Smith told an interviewer in 2022 that COVID was a “plandemic” hatched by Bill Gates in Davos.) “Rupert has been radicalized by his own echo chamber,” said a person close to him, explaining his initial attraction to Smith . a plan to merge Fox and News Corp — which would have centralized Lachlan’s control of the television and publishing divisions — scuttled after major shareholders objected. to the Murdochs.
Murdoch’s most damaging mistake, however, is Fox News’ coverage of President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat and its aftermath. but even if the parties settle before then, Dominion’s legal documents have already released internal communications showing that those at the highest level of Fox News didn’t believe Trump’s stolen election plots were even pro for the network. Trump’s fraud alleges “really crazy stuff.”) I covered Fox News for over a decade and wrote a 2014 biography of Ailes, longtime Fox News chairman and CEO. The Dominion lawsuit is the worst crisis on record. the network I saw. In their own words, Fox hosts have been exposed as propagandists: “If we lose this lawsuit, it’s a damn bad thing,” a senior Fox staffer told me.
