Published on msn.com
By Cara Michelle Smith, December 13th, 2024
A Nevada probate commissioner ruled last week against billionaire media scion Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to change his family’s trust in order to guarantee that his eldest son, Lachlan, would have broad control over his massive empire. Murdoch attempted to remove three of his less conservative children’s voting rights on the company’s board, stripping their power to potentially change Fox News’ right-wing bent.
It’s a fascinating story Vanity Fair dubbed “perhaps the greatest setback in the 93-year-old mogul’s career.” And while many might have once yawned at the estate planning of the ultra wealthy, this private-turned-public succession drama is giving us a glimpse into the inner machinations of the one of the world’s richest families and corporate behemoths. It comes on the heels of “Succession,” HBO’s monumentally successful drama that ended last year and was based not-so-loosely on the Murdoch family.
The Murdochs’ legal proceedings are “of great interest to people, and it just fits into this cultural moment,” Allison Tait, a law professor at the University of Richmond and expert in trusts and estates, told Salon. “People are trying to understand the ways that these trusts are used, and how things work.”
Murdoch presides over much of the world’s conservative media networks. He owns Fox News and News Corp., a conglomerate that owns The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, MarketWatch, The Sunday Times, Dow Jones, Barron’s and scores of other publications, as well as the book publisher HarperCollins. Murdoch’s net worth is estimated at $12 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
