Rupert Murdoch Spending His Golden Years Making His Children Hate Him

The Fox mogul is fighting with his kids about the future of his company after he croaks.

Could Fox News one day become less conservative? Theoretically, sure. The New York Post used to be a liberal rag, did it not?

Would knowing his empire was trending in a less conservative direction be the funniest fucking thing to happen to 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch before he goes to his grave? God yes. Let us all pray to the deity of our choice that this happens. Let us all pray that in his final hours, as he rests in a hospital bed, attended to by the finest doctors and nurses all his blood money can buy, that one of his less-conservative children leans down and whispers in his ear something to the effect of We’re firing Watters and Ingraham and taking Fox in a liberal direction like Sophie Marceau whispering to Richard McGoohan that she is pregnant with Mel Gibson’s child as the dying old man’s eyes fill with stunned agony at the end of Braveheart. That would be neat.

Weirdly, this scenario is not completely out of the realm of possibility, thanks to a fight the Murdochs have been embroiled in over the family trust that divides control of the company amongst Rupert’s four older children. The fight pitted Rupert and wingnut son Lachlan, who runs the empire with his father, against Lachlan’s sisters Prudence and Elizabeth, and his brother James.

Rupert would like Lachlan to continue running the empire after his death. But because Lachlan’s three siblings have an equal share of the trust, and also because they are not raging nutters, Rupert and Lachlan fear that after the old man dies, the latter’s siblings could team up and make Fox News less conservative. But then America and the rest of the world would be better off, and Rupert Murdoch has not spent 93 years and counting being an evil little garden gnome to let that happen.

So Rupert and Lachlan tried to change the trust in a way that would give the son full control of the company after his father dies. But they had to justify the change to a probate court in Nevada, over the strong objections of Prudence, Elizabeth, and James.

If it all sounds a bit “Succession”-y, well, yeah:

The proceedings revealed that Mr. Murdoch’s children had started secretly discussing the public-relations strategy for their father’s death in April 2023. Setting off these discussions was the episode of the HBO drama “Succession,” the commissioner wrote, “where the patriarch of the family dies, leaving his family and business in chaos.” The episode prompted Elisabeth’s representative to the trust, Mark Devereux, to write a “‘Succession’ memo” intended to help avoid a real-life repeat.

The scheme involved convincing the probate court that the change was being made to ensure Fox remains a right-wing sludge factory forever, which Rupert and Lachlan argued was in the “best interests” of Rupert’s beneficiaries, which include his two youngest daughters he had with third wife Wendi Deng, and who have a financial stake in the company equal to that of their much older half-siblings.

Over the weekend, the probate commissioner who heard the case in Nevada ruled against Rupert and Lachlan, and he was rather snarly about it:

At one point in his 96-page opinion, Mr. Gorman characterizes the plan to change the trust as a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles” inside the empire “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the family trust.

Gorman later accused Rupert and Lachlan of trying to “stack the deck” in Lachlan’s favor, and after some yammering about poker and bluffs and cards being called, said this:

“The court, after considering the facts of this case in the light of the law, sees the cards for what they are and concludes this raw deal will not, over the signature of this probate commissioner, prevail.”

In other words, nice try, fellas, now go get your motherfucking shine box.

As part of the scheme, Rupert and Lachlan appointed new representatives to the trust to work out the deal. One of those new people was Bill Barr, the jowly former attorney general who ended his ignominious career covering up the crimes of the world’s dumbest reality show host. Gorman wrote that Barr and the others “demonstrated a dishonesty of purpose and motive” in helping the Murdochs. Bill Barr dishonest? Whew, someone make Gorman the editor of a major newspaper or the president of CNN or something.

Rupert and Lachlan say they will appeal the decision, so there is still a chance Lachlan will be able to cement control of Fox’s future. But he’s banking on a 93-year-old heart not giving out first. Or more accurately, he’s banking on Satan not trying to collect on whatever deal he and Rupert made to keep the wrinkly foreskin-looking bastard alive and plotting this long.

[New York Times]

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