After years of speculation about the succession of the Murdoch empire, Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son, Lachlan, has been officially anointed to take over his father’s vast media empire.
Rupert Murdoch, one of the most powerful media tycoons of the modern era, is stepping down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corporation at the age of 92 and handing the reins to his 52-year-old son.
The takeover planning appeared to begin in 2015, when Rupert named Lachlan and his brother James Murdoch as co-chairmen of 21st Century Fox. James later left the company, and Lachlan became CEO of the Fox Corporation in 2019, following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
With his father’s departure, Lachlan will become the sole chairman of both Fox and News, after having co-chaired the company for years. The elder Murdoch will continue to serve on the boards as chairman emeritus, the companies said.
“We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted,” Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement Thursday morning.
It’s unclear whether right-wing cable network’s pro-Trump rhetoric will change with Lachlan Murdoch more fully in the driver’s seat.
However, Lachlan has privately criticized Trump, saying that he disagrees with much of the way the former president behaves, people familiar with the matter told CNN last year. At the same time, a 2022 biography of Lachlan notes that as CEO of the network he ultimately approved the extraordinary decision not to air the first live hearings conducted by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The network opted instead to run commentary on the hearing from right-wing commentators Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
At the time those hearings aired, Australian journalist Paddy Manning wrote in the biography, Lachlan and his wife, Sarah, were relaxing on their $30 million yacht in the Sydney Harbour.
Lachlan, who was born in London and graduated from Princeton, is one of three children Rupert had with his second wife, Anna Torv. He was raised in the United States from age 3, and spent much of his adult life in Australia. Over the years, his sister Elisabeth and brother James were also seen as potential contenders for the top role.
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