Just a few months ago, it seemed the odds were stacked against Rupert Murdoch.
A Nevada judge had shot down his attempt to bend succession to his will and cut three of his children out of his trust, condemning the move as a “bad faith” effort and a “carefully crafted charade”.
Donald Trump had turned too, launching a $10bn lawsuit against him and his “third rate newspaper”, after a Wall Street Journal story about the president’s alleged links to late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Shareholders had already baulked in 2023 at his bid to reunite Fox and News Corp.
Yet at 94, Murdoch has defied the odds, pulling off one last remarkable deal to secure his legacy and the conservative rule of his media kingdom — including juggernaut Fox News — long after he is gone.
Murdoch forced the outcome through sheer will, placing enormous pressure on his adult children during round-the-clock negotiations over months, according to several people familiar with the matter.
Behind the scenes, the talks were tense. The siblings clashed over everything from how to value a vast hoard of stock in the Murdoch business empire to control over a family sheep ranch.
The result: a $3.3bn payout to Elisabeth, Prudence and James Murdoch, removing them from the family trust and extinguishing their influence in his businesses for good.
Monday’s announcement — which labelled the three siblings as “departing members” — landed on Lachlan Murdoch’s 54th birthday, anointing him the successor to the Murdoch empire. It was the series finale to a drama that has gripped the media and political worlds for decades.
Murdoch’s earlier bid to remake the trust — which controls Fox Corp and News Corp through voting shares — aimed to give eldest son Lachlan full voting power and decision-making after the patriarch’s death.
It was branded “Project Harmony”, but it tore the family apart. A commissioner in Nevada, where the trust is incorporated, refused the gambit. Elisabeth, Prudence and James stopped speaking to Lachlan and their father.
Still, Elisabeth and Prudence did not want their estrangement to stretch into their father’s final years. “They didn’t want that to be the last chapter,” said one person close to the family.
Agreeing to sell became a way to end the war.
James Murdoch was disappointed by the outcome but felt he had no choice, said a person close to the matter. The previous trust would have split voting power among the four eldest siblings, meaning he would have needed his sisters’ support to mount any coup.
“He is disappointed that this will be the family legacy, and that he is associated with it. He can’t change his last name,” said a longtime family friend.
James has long been estranged from his father after losing the succession battle with Lachlan. The more politically moderate son left the board of News Corp, whose assets include The Wall Street Journal, HarperCollins, and the UK’s The Sun and The Times, in 2020.
Preserving his outlets’ conservative slant is deeply important to Rupert Murdoch. “Fox and our papers are the only faintly conservative voices against the monolithic liberal media. I believe maintaining this is vital to the future of the English-speaking world,” he wrote in an email unearthed during the Nevada trial.
John Malone, the media billionaire and Murdoch’s friend and sparring partner over decades, told the Financial Times it would have been “very disruptive” if James had taken control of Fox News.
“I know Rupert would hate the thought,” he said.
While it appeared the other siblings had the leverage after Murdoch’s loss in Nevada, the appeals process gave Rupert and Lachlan hope of overturning the decision, raising fears among the other siblings that they would be doggedly pursued.
It raised the prospect of years more family infighting, one person said.
“[Rupert and Lachlan] were determined to fight the case,” a person close to the situation said. “How long did [the others] want to keep going? This is a family split down the middle — it’s very painful for them.”
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Talks began in spring 2024 with radical options: selling half of Fox and half of News Corp, or simply selling one outright, according to advisers to the deal.
Lachlan’s camp pitched buyouts to the others that they derided as “silly discounts”.
The Nevada trust lawsuit gave James’s group confidence, and talks ground to a halt. By March of this year, however, everyone was back at the table. This time discussions were more grounded, but still plagued by thorny issues around taxes and how to handle fluctuations in equity valuations.
The negotiations occurred entirely through representatives — the siblings did not speak directly. The negotiations broke down several times, and a handful of power brokers were critical in steering the deal through.
On Rupert and Lachlan’s side, Fox’s chief operating officer John Nallen and former US attorney-general Bill Barr provided counsel. The departing siblings leaned on Centerview’s longtime Murdoch confidant Blair Effron, described by one person close to the family as acting “more therapist this time around than a dealmaker”.
At one point even the family’s sheep ranch in Australia became a source of dispute, with Prudence seeking control of the asset, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The only in-person meeting took place at New York’s Harvard Club among various representatives. By May, when Fox’s stock price soared, the parties saw a way forward, and a handshake agreement on deal terms was reached.
Lachlan’s early offer, back in 2024, was pitched to the departing members at a roughly 50 per cent discount to the share prices of Fox and News Corp. But when the pact was informally agreed in May, that discount had largely evaporated.
A rise in the groups’ shares since then meant the final deal was sealed at a 20 per cent discount.
The remaining sticking point was over restrictions on what the departing members — Elisabeth, James and Prudence — could do after the deal.
Rupert Murdoch wanted to restrict them from launching competing media ventures and even control their media appearances, according to advisers.
The departing siblings had struck down those terms — though their father did succeed in banning them from buying stock in Fox or News Corp.
The settlement will not dramatically change the siblings’ already significant fortunes. They each received $2bn from the 2019 sale of entertainment group 21st Century Fox to Disney.
Elisabeth and Prudence are said to be “laying the groundwork” to repair ties with their father and Lachlan. James, friends say, may never reconcile. “I don’t know that James will ever get there,” said a person close to the family.
“Rupert always had a predisposition to [Lachlan] as the number one son. You know, patriarchy . . . He’s always had a feeling for Lachlan that was different. And the other kids have always felt that,” said the longtime friend of the family.
The settlement means the political slant of Fox News, which is among the most watched television channels in the second Trump era, will not change. That removes the risk that a shift in tone would “degrade the value” of the company, as MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman put it.
Now the “departing members” of the family will decide what comes next.
People close to the matter do not expect James to go after his brother for control of the media businesses. Instead, the younger Murdoch son was focused on his media ventures in India, said a person familiar with the matter.
“I can understand that people want a new series of Succession where the son comes back all guns blazing,” said another person close to the family, referring to the HBO series. “But I doubt this very much. I don’t think James will now want to take on his father and brother.”
As for the sheep farm Prudence had sought to control, the deal leaves it as a shared asset for the trust, people familiar with the matter said.
Elisabeth was expected to focus on growing her TV and film production business, according to one person familiar with the matter.
One rival media executive said that Murdoch ultimately turned to the thing he knew best — cutting a deal. “There is always a cheque that solves things,” the executive, who knows the family, said.
“Even an immortal like Rupert needs to do some estate planning.”