Rupert Murdoch Ends the Family-Trust Battle—but the Cost Is More Than Money

It has been a pretty good week for Rupert Murdoch, who on Monday successfully exercised power over his offspring, securing the future of his media empire in an agreement that put to bed a yearslong familial battle. The deal clears the path for his son Lachlan to be heir to his vast media empire until at least 2050.

Meanwhile, the media mogul didn’t allow Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal—over reporting on the now infamous birthday letter sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—to deter the outlet from continuing to publish hard-hitting political journalism on the White House. The legal challenge appeared even more meritless when the letter itself, which Trump argued did not exist, was published in the Journal after lawyers for Epstein’s estate provided Congress with a copy of the birthday book.

“This is a moment of relief” for Murdoch, Brian Stelter, the author of Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, tells Vanity Fair.

At 94 years old, Murdoch still wields an enormous amount of control over his family, his business, and the media ecosystem at large. His win in the long-running family legal drama makes that clear. The agreement puts to rest any idea that the Murdoch holdings might veer toward the center—or even to the left—under the control of a more moderate bloc of Murdoch heirs, including Prudence, James, and Elisabeth, after Rupert’s death. Lachlan, who’s long been viewed as the Murdoch progeny most ideologically aligned with the conservative politics of the family news brand, will now oversee it for at least another quarter century.

But at what cost?

“It’s just one of those empty Murdochian wins,” David Clinch, a media-revenue consultant who sold social-news start-up Storyful to Murdoch in 2013, argues. The mogul may have saved his life’s work at Fox Corporation and News Corp from being ripped apart by his feuding children in the aftermath of his eventual passing. However, while the nightmare of familial warfare—which was consistently “exacerbated” by leaks to the media, according to Stelter—over the terms for the company’s future has been settled for now, the damage has already been done. Years of plotting behind one another’s backs to change the trust terms, negotiating through lawyers, and controversial public comments being made by dissenters have taken a toll on the personal family relationships.

Vanity Fair reached out to Fox Corporation’s chief communications officer for comment on the matter and was referred to the company’s Monday press release.

In a complex series of transactions, each of the elder Murdoch siblings will receive $1.1 billion in exchange for their shares, according to The New York Times, which first reported particular details of the agreement. As a result, the original trust will be dissolved, and a new one, controlled by Lachlan—and including Murdoch’s youngest daughters, Grace and Chloe, from his marriage to ex-wife Wendi Deng Murdoch—will take its place. (Maybe that’s why this reporter spotted Wendi enjoying Sun Valley, Idaho, this July during Allen & Company’s annual conference, which Murdoch and his oldest son are known to frequent.)

The finalization of the deal had been about finding the dollar amount to which the opposing camp of children would agree, says Claire Atkinson, an independent media reporter writing a forthcoming Murdoch biography. “It’s about the number at the end of the day, and Rupert knows that,” she tells VF. As noted by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, Murdoch has a long history of paying out to get what he wants.

But compromise on paper and money in the bank do not necessarily equal familial reconciliation, especially when there are tensions so deeply rooted. Atkinson, who once worked for the News Corp–owned New York Post, isn’t convinced that members of the Murdoch clan will be enjoying one another’s company over Thanksgiving dinner anytime soon.

“This is a really emotional moment for everybody,” including the elder children, Atkinson argues, as they “grew up being part of this company” and have now been bought out. Given that Murdoch has “done everything in his power” to maintain a majority family stake in the conglomerate, Atkinson adds, “the potential breakdown of that, through the trust, I’m sure was quite upsetting to him.”

“This absolutely tore the family apart,” Stelter, CNN's chief media analyst says. “And there’s no reason to believe that this payment instantly heals the wounds.”

In the background of the interpersonal drama that could rival even Jesse Armstrong’s creative liberties (which reportedly inspired subsequent real-life conversations), Murdoch has been demonstrating his notorious ruthlessness and influence in another way: by not backing down from the administration’s claims of defamation and threats of litigation over the Journal’s Epstein stories.

“He is the one who has authorized and supported and encouraged all of this reporting in The Wall Street Journal, or at the very least, certainly hasn’t stood in its way,” Clinch says of the mogul.

With the publication of the note itself on Monday, Trump’s central claim, that the letter did not exist, is “out the door,” as CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig puts it. The Journal had sought to insulate itself from legal challenges by not explicitly reporting that Trump had signed the letter himself, instead saying that the document appeared to include his name and that the circumstances around its creation remained unclear.

“I don’t think Trump has much, if anything, left to aim at,” Honig argues, given that it’s the president’s responsibility to prove that the Journal knowingly published false information.

“You could call that power,” Clinch posits, especially when comparing the actions of the Journal to those of media organizations like CBS News parent company Paramount and ABC News, which have cowed to pressure from the administration, agreeing to pay millions of dollars in settlements over reporting widely viewed as similarly defensible. But simultaneously, other Murdoch-owned outlets, like the New York Post and Fox News, have barely covered the Journal’s bombshell reporting, or at the very least, have veered away from putting the focus on the president himself. In Clinch’s words, “they’re just crawling up Trump’s arse.”

“Rupert always wins because he always plays both sides,” he adds, insinuating that the strategically constructed range of the media empire’s coverage grants Murdoch more freedom than your standard media mogul. Murdoch has always understood how to effectively use his media portfolio as a “cudgel for getting people to do what [he wants] them to do,” in ways that advance his business interests, Atkinson adds.

Still, there are things outside of Murdoch’s control. At 94 years old, even one of the most powerful men in the world can’t control his own mortality, and Trump and his legal team appear to be acutely aware of that fact.

In a July filing that marked a clear escalation of the feud, Trump’s lawyers argued that Murdoch should be deposed within 15 days because of his age and past health issues. By early August, the parties had agreed to postpone the deposition until after the Journal’s motion to dismiss had been heard by the court. Should that motion be denied, Murdoch will be required to sit for a deposition within 30 days. In the meantime, he has agreed to share regular health updates with the Trump team.

Murdoch’s age was also a factor in bringing the rebelling offspring to the table in the end, according to Clinch.

“Obviously, when you are that age, it has to play into everybody’s thinking,” Atkinson adds, though she asserts that, as far as she knows, Murdoch remains in relatively good health. “Nobody wants to be on the outs with their father at that late stage of life.”

Whether the maneuvers result in a fuller family détente remains an open question.