progressive succession: occurs one funeral at a time

August 6, 2024 1:56 AM

The Secret Battle for the Future of the Murdoch Empire [ungated] - "Murdoch, 93, set the drama in motion late last year, when he made a surprise move to change the terms of the Murdochs' irrevocable family trust to ensure that his eldest son and chosen successor, Lachlan, would remain in charge of his vast collection of television networks and newspapers."

The trust currently hands control of the family business to the four oldest children when Mr. Murdoch dies. But he is arguing in court that only by empowering Lachlan to run the company without interference from his more politically moderate siblings can he preserve its conservative editorial bent, and thus protect its commercial value for all his heirs.

Those three siblings — James, Elisabeth and Prudence — were caught completely off-guard by their father’s effort to rewrite what was supposed to be an inviolable trust and have united to stop him...

Rupert Murdoch's succession plan reveals a lot about his empire – and most of it is not pretty - "The media mogul wants to change his 'irrevocable trust' so that eldest son Lachlan has total control and maintains his media outlets' right-wing agenda."

He may have lit the spark of reactionary politics and fanned the flames of anger in his audiences, but now it’s a movement and it’s raging like a Californian wildfire.[1] In a sense, Murdoch has become captive to the masses who demand that their prejudices remain unchallenged...

Yes, many have long suspected Lachlan’s leanings, given his guidance of Fox in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection. Lachlan was in charge when the network condoned the conspiracy-mongering and the big lie in the wake of Trump’s election loss in 2020.

He did little to curb the transphobia across the organisation or its obsession with “wokeism” as the latest frontier in the culture wars. He watched on as News smeared climate scientists and ridiculed Australian firefighters who linked the 2019/20 bushfires to climate change. The company’s coverage and support of Trump finally led James Murdoch to walk away from News in 2019.

Even though this much is known, it’s still shocking to realise that Murdoch has seen it too and that, after weighing up his children’s political views, has gone and driven a wedge between them because three of them aren’t right-wing enough.

Rupert Murdoch's Family Battle Proves He's Losing Control - [ungated] - "The media mogul is scrambling to protect Fox News from three of his politically moderate heirs. It's a sign of Rupert's waning influence. 'Murdoch is no longer the pope,' one political vet says."

When Rupert Murdoch surveyed the Republican National Convention from his box in the Milwaukee arena, he was, as usual, hard to read. At 93, his face has settled into a mask of vulpine repose, akin to that of an emperor in the gathering shadows of his time.

Few people knew then that, in fact, the Murdoch family dynasty was riven by a feud over the succession. At that moment, it seemed simply that Murdoch had turned up to witness the apotheosis of his yearslong collusion with Donald Trump. Together, through Fox News, they had hijacked the Republican Party and transformed it into a vitriolic personality cult...

Now it looks like Trump and Fox News are, in a way unthinkable only a week or so ago, stuck on the wrong side of history. Like the Trump base, the Fox News audience is predominantly white and aging. A generational tsunami has been unleashed by the Democrats, in which social media is a far more precise and responsive way of building, energizing, and funding a campaign than old media—cable TV and newsprint.

Rupert Murdoch is in a 'Succession'-style rift with his kids over his media empire - "As a result, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are battling the other three children — James, Elisabeth and Prudence Murdoch — in a Reno, Nevada, court. A probate commissioner in the city 'found last month that the family's irrevocable trust can be rewritten if Murdoch can prove he is acting in good faith to protect the value of the trust's holdings,' said The Guardian. This is likely why Murdoch is pushing hard to hand sole control to his eldest son, as 'Lachlan Murdoch is seen as the most conservative[2] of Murdoch's children and his father is arguing that his political beliefs are essential to maintaining the value of the right-leaning media company.'"

posted by kliuless (16 comments total)

Damn, you teased us there with the funeral in the headline...
posted by chavenet at 2:22 AM on August 6 [7 favorites]

Nice little glint off the vampire fang showing in Lachlan's Wikipedia pic.

This is annoying. I've already outlived Kissinger, and outliving Rupert seems eminently achievable, but fucking Lachlan has nearly ten years on me. Gonna have to start taking my health more seriously.
posted by flabdablet at 2:45 AM on August 6 [13 favorites]

Alan Kohler is an Australian finance writer. His take
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2024/07/29/alan-kohler-nevada-murdoch-us-election

He points out that a major part of the value of News Corp is its holding in REA Group which has the real estate listing websites realestate.com.au, flatmates.com.au etc

Eric Beecher - a former employee
https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/aug/06/rupert-lachlan-and-me-inside-the-murdochs-medieval-fiefdom
From the article
'In his new book, The Men Who Killed the News, Beecher says during his time in the organisation his “moral compass became dysfunctional”.

“I had two years, you know, at a pretty senior level at News Corp, I saw a lot of Rupert Murdoch, travelled the world, and was part of the organisation from the inside,” Beecher says. “And it shocked me.” '
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 3:02 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]

It seems odd that he can’t revoke something created at his behest. It seems stupid that he signed it in the first place.

Regardless of any other opinion about him, seems like he should be able to say who gets his stuff when he dies.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 4:45 AM on August 6

Regardless of any other opinion about him, seems like he should be able to say who gets his stuff when he dies.

He does. The problem is that he set up a trust to avoid taxes and maintain some control, but now wants to change the deal further because 3/4 of his kids don’t perfectly share his political activism. This is a problem he chose to be in, shed no tears for him.
posted by adamsc at 5:05 AM on August 6 [13 favorites]

Yeah, this is entirely a problem of his own making. The whole point of an irrevocable trust is that the tax and liability situation is different (and more favorable) because you don't own the assets in the trust anymore. Sure, it's mostly a legal fiction because the way these trusts are set up, the person creating it still maintains use of the assets for the rest of their life, but courts tend to react badly when you say "hey, remember that thing we all agreed was true because it was convenient for me? what if we just reversed that completely?" That's why he's put in the awkward position of arguing that this isn't about his politics, he's just certain that most of the beneficiaries of the trust are incapable of managing the assets in the trust, and therefore it's in their best interest to be completely cut off from any control over them.
posted by firechicago at 6:24 AM on August 6 [6 favorites]

Regardless of any other opinion about him, seems like he should be able to say who gets his stuff when he dies.

What if I think he shouldn't be permitted to own that much stuff?

In a properly set up system any single person would be limited to owning exactly one cable channel, TV station, radio station, or newspaper. Not one of each, one total.

Since we don't live in that world, I'd say that if Murdoch wants to change the trust he set up to dodge taxes then the condition for doing so should be paying all the taxes he evaded plus interest.
posted by sotonohito at 8:16 AM on August 6 [5 favorites]

I guess an irrevocable trust is one of those things you get when you have a ton of money. I would have whatever the opposite of that is.

If I could even afford that.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 9:03 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]

if Murdoch wants to change the trust he set up to dodge taxes then the condition for doing so should be paying all the taxes he evaded plus interest.

Insufficient. If he wants this he should also be assessed the penalties for tax evasion that would apply to those back taxes. Have fun being Al Caponed mother fucker.
posted by Mitheral at 9:39 AM on August 6 [3 favorites]

It seems odd that he can’t revoke something created at his behest.

Can Rupert create a boulder so heavy that he can't lift it?
posted by flabdablet at 10:18 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]

> It seems odd that he can’t revoke something created at his behest.

It's literally called an irrevocable trust. I set one up recently (to protect some family-owned land when my mother passes), and the lawyers made it very clear that "irrevocable" means "irrevocable." You create the trust and you can never touch it or change it, ever. The level of wealth Murdoch has is very different than our dozen acres in the Maine woods, but there's nothing unusual or odd about creating legal entities that then cannot be changed.
posted by riotnrrd at 10:18 AM on August 6 [4 favorites]

Things like lemon laws and cooling off periods notwithstanding it's also the basis of modern commerce. We don't let people sell a house and then 10 years later say "oops, my bad, turns out selling that isn't working for me so you'all will have to give it back."
posted by Mitheral at 3:22 PM on August 6 [2 favorites]

No surprise such an evil person fought so hard to ensure evil kept being done after his death. Mulch the rich, fertilize the Earth.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:35 PM on August 6 [1 favorite]

The irrevocable trust was set up as part of the divorce settlement from his second wife. The oldest daughter, Prudence, is from the first marriage and Lachlan, James and Elizabeth from the second. Second wife, Anna Murdoch Mann, negotiated that the four children would each have a share when Rupert died, as part of her settlement for the divorce.

The assessment is that Anna could have pushed to split up the business in order to be paid out, so Rupert conceded to the arrangement as it meant he retained operational control of News and Fox. Anna specifically limited the shares to the four children, so that when Rupert had two more children with the third wife, the younger children had no ownership or voting rights, just income entitlements.

I would be amazed if Anna is not following the proceedings with close scrutiny.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 1:14 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

I guess an irrevocable trust is one of those things you get when you have a ton of money. I would have whatever the opposite of that is.

Revokable mistrust?
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 3:51 PM on August 7

> Revokable mistrust?

Inevitable Betrayal
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:29 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]