A new three-part series sheds light on the Murdoch media empire and the ongoing battle to control it.
Key Takeaways
- US presidential nominee Donald Trump told Australian billionaire James Packer that he was keen to get to know Lachlan Murdoch better, Packer tells Australian Story.
- Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the heir apparent to the Murdoch media empire could play a pivotal role in saving – or destroying – democracy in the US if civil chaos followed a Trump defeat at the next election.
- While Lachlan Murdoch has taken over as the successor to his father Rupert Murdoch, the sibling enmity over control of the US$20 billion empire is at its worst, according to the junior Murdoch’s biographer, Paddy Manning.
- The show will air as Rupert prepares to take on Lachlan’s older siblings in a court case in which political alignment will be a crucial question.
- Lachlan’s younger brother James has pinned his colours to the mast in that court case by endorsing Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Lachlan Murdoch has shown no inclination to be the kingmaker that his father is and was, says his biographer Paddy Manning. Telling evidence of this is that he has not attempted to get to know former US president Donald Trump.
But Trump wants to get to know him.
Manning has worked with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Australian Story to produce a three-part series on Lachlan Murdoch, who turned 53 yesterday. They travelled to Las Vegas to interview Murdoch’s old friend, billionaire James Packer, who told them he’d found himself sitting next to Donald Trump at an event early this year. “Lachlan’s name came up. And, you know, Donald Trump said to me, well, he’d love to get to know Lachlan better. And, I mean, he’s Lachlan Murdoch.”
Packer, the former chair of Crown Resorts who sold his 37% share in the casino company to Blackstone for a reported $A3.36 billion, was as surprised as anyone that the Murdoch scion had not already got to know the 2024 presidential candidate better.
“That was significant because … it speaks to one of the differences between Lachlan and [his 93-year-old father] Rupert, that Lachlan remains a mystery to Trump, just as he remains a mystery to many of us,” says Manning, author of the Lachlan Murdoch biography, The Successor. “Trump has known Rupert Murdoch for decades … but Lachlan didn’t meet Trump until 2019. At a state dinner at the White House for then-prime minister Scott Morrison. I think that speaks to one of the differences between Lachlan and Rupert – that Lachlan does not aspire to be the political kingmaker that Rupert Murdoch has been throughout his career.
“Lachlan is much more of a businessman. He’s much more focused on, I think, the bottom line and what’s going to maximise the value of the businesses he controls.” Manning cites the history of Rupert Murdoch chasing influential mastheads like The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal, and starting Fox News and The Australian, all added to his political power. Whereas Lachlan has invested in realestate.com.au, Nova radio stations, student loans business Credible and streaming business Tubi. “These are not things that increase your political influence,” says Manning.
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Rupert Murdoch stepped down as chair of Fox and News Corp in September last year and Manning notes that since then Lachlan has met with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “But I still think he never will be, and doesn’t mean to be, a behind-the-scenes kingmaker.”
When Fox News called the state of Arizona for the Democrats in the 2020 presidential election, it caused a rift between the network and the Trump camp, leading to a loss of ratings, and hence revenue, for the network. In their bid to win the Trumpist audience back, Fox News went hard on election conspiracies which ultimately led to them losing, in April 2023, a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. “There was a US$787 million cheque he had to write to settle the Dominion case and another still to come for the related Smartmatic case,” says Manning.
“I think the important test is what will happen in the coming election and we have interviewed people who have framed it this way: that if … Trump is defeated narrowly and again claims it’s been stolen, how will Fox cover it. Will there be a repeat of 2020. Serious people are worrying about the possibility of civil war in America. [Former Prime Minister] Malcolm Turnbull who’s got his own podcast Defending Democracy spoke to us about his own fears that war could erupt if again you have a situation where Trump loses and disputes the result and Fox News again is pouring fuel on the flames by questioning the legitimacy of the result.”
Turnbull tells Australian Story that it is no surprise that people rise up when Fox – through its “massive influential megaphone” – says “your election was stolen”. “Why are you surprised that they rise up? This is like throwing, you know, a match into a barrel of gasoline.”
Lachlan has the power to call off the attack dogs, says Manning. “As we saw in the Dominion case, Lachlan’s instructions, or ‘suggestions’ as he describes them, are always acted on. His authority is unquestioned, and if he wants to, this is something that his siblings clearly want him to do, he can make it crystal clear that there will be no countenance of baseless stolen election claims on Fox airtime.”
Ratings have surged back to Fox since the 2020 election. It remains the number one news channel in the US, but, says Manning, “at the end of the day there’s something more important here – the future of democracy in the US and around the world – and Lachlan knows that. Lachlan is the one who fired Fox News’s biggest star, Tucker Carlson, last year. Lachlan has shown that he’s prepared if necessary to take dramatic action and suffer a short-term ratings hit … I believe it’s an iron law of the Murdoch empire that no talent is irreplaceable, and Lachlan has shown that there’s no one more important than himself as the CEO … He is the boss and he will hopefully, if faced with a 2020 test, act differently to what he and Rupert did last time.”
The three-part series tells the story of how Lachlan’s politics have drifted right over the decades and how that has helped him win the succession battle, to the point where it is now the reason his father has gone to court to change the rules of the 1999 trust he set up to give his four oldest children equal control of the empire when he is gone.
At stake is a controlling 43.4% voting stake in Fox Corp which equates to 21% of all shares on issue, a controlling 40.5% voting stake in News Corp, which equates to 20.6% of all shares on issue, and 4.4% of Disney Corp, all of which Forbes values at US$20 billion.
In the real-life version of Succession, Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch have taken siblings James, Elisabeth, and Prudence, to court in an attempt to change the rules of the trust that holds their shares in News Corp, Fox and Disney.
Currently, Murdoch Sr. holds four votes and each of his four oldest children has one vote. After he dies, they will each have four equal votes so Lachlan could be outvoted and removed by his siblings.
Murdoch Sr. is arguing in the Nevada court that interference from his more politically moderate siblings would cause a financial loss to Fox and therefore it is in their own best interests if they have their votes taken away from them. As if to prove his allegiance, Lachlan’s younger brother James has joined 88 celebrities in a high-profile endorsement of Democrat candidate Kamala Harris. Jame was CEO of 21st Century Fox before being replaced by the more conservative Lachlan as head of the Murdoch empire.
Murdoch’s youngest daughters, Chloe and Grace, from his third wife, Wendi Deng, have a financial interest in the trust, but do not have voting rights.
For all that, the series points out that it’s not quite as juicy as the Netflix series Succession. “If you look at the Murdoch family, to me, it’s the very antithesis of that rather salacious television program,” family friend and former investment banker Mark Burrows tells Australian Story.
“The Murdochs are innately polite, respectful and, certainly when it comes to Lachlan, very family oriented.”
Former Murdoch editor Eric Beecher, however, jokes that, “for me, it was a documentary”.
