A page is turning for Rupert Murdoch, who has just celebrated his 92nd birthday. In an internal memo sent to his teams, the iconic Australian-American media mogul announced that he would hand over the presidency of his empire to his eldest son Lachlan, 52, from November. “I am writing to let you all know that I have decided to take on the role of Chairman Emeritus of Fox Corporation and News Corp,” he explained in an email this Thursday.
“Throughout my professional life, I have been involved in the creation of information and ideas on a daily basis, this will not change. But the time has come for me to occupy other positions. Lachlan will become the sole chairman of both companies,” said Rupert Murdoch. The News Corp entity notably owns the newspapers The Wall Street Journal, The Times, the New York Post and the tabloid The Sun, as well as the publishing group HarperCollins, while Fox Corporation houses the Fox News channel.
For around thirty years, the billionaire’s succession has fascinated commentators around the world. The story between the patriarch and his children, Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence, even inspired the writers of the successful television series “Succession” (HBO)… Designated as the official successor, Lachlan is today the last of siblings to still work alongside their father. Until now, he served as general manager of Fox Corp, while his brother James recently decided to close the door on the family empire.
“On behalf of the boards of FOX and News Corp, the management teams and all the shareholders who have benefited from his hard work, I congratulate my father on his remarkable 70-year career,” Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. press release, saluting his “pioneering spirit, his unwavering determination” and his “lasting legacy”.
In his email to employees, Rupert Murdoch assured that his health was still “robust”, despite a trying Covid, repeated falls, attacks, and heart rhythm disorders. This withdrawal of the nonagenarian with many marriages comes only five months after Fox News had to agree to pay the sum of 787.5 million dollars to the manufacturer of electronic voting machines Dominion Voting Systems, to avoid an embarrassing defamation trial after the 2020 US presidential election.
The businessman who launched into the press in the 1950s, became one of Hollywood’s emblematic executives in 1985 when he bought Twentieth Century Fox from oilman Marvin Davis for the tidy sum of 600 millions of dollars. In 1986, Murdoch entered the television business after purchasing several American television networks and creating Fox Broadcasting. The Fox News channel was launched ten years later with the ambition of competing with CNN. Over the years, it eventually became the number one cable news channel in the United States and a bastion of Republican arguments.