The battle of the Murdoch brothers: How James’ shock resignation hands victory to Lachlan

James Murdoch’s resignation from the family firm represents a victory for his older brother in the epic power struggle between the two siblings and their Succession-style battle to succeed their father.

His decision to ditch News Corp – citing ‘disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets’ – sent shockwaves through the media world.

But the 47-year-old’s relationship with father Rupert had long been cold before yesterday’s shock announcement, according to Jamie Roberts, who made the BBC documentary The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.

The London-based director and producer today claimed James ‘seems to have been distancing himself from the family business for about three years now’.

The move has paved the way for his older brother Lachlan, 48, to take over the multi-billion dollar family empire when Rupert, 89, dies.

Mr Roberts told the Today programme: ‘From what I know I think the relationship has been cold for some time and he’s publicly spoken out against some of his father’s core businesses and that – from what we have learnt – is a big no no.

‘Liz Murdoch did that around the time of the phone hacking scandal and she was criticised by her father for doing that.

‘And so him doing this is a very kind of front footed statement from James about who he is now and the fact he is his own man.’

James had been on the board of directors for News Corp since 2013 and was the CEO of 21st Century Fox until last year.

In a statement last night, he said: ‘My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.’

Mr Roberts said Lachlan was already the preferred candidate to take over Rupert’s empire when he dies, citing sources he spoke to in his three-part series.

He said James’s statement was ‘just publicly underlining it’ and added the youngest son has been investing in left-leaning media outlets that mirror his father’s.

The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty presented a world where Rupert would play his children off against each other to see who was most capable of taking over his firm.

Even when they were children Rupert was grooming them to take over the business one day and keep them in competition with each other.

In one account, the media mogul had them eating breakfast at their home on Fifth Avenue, New York, while he lectured them on how the morning’s newspapers were laid out, including how many ad pages there were and which articles were selected and placed where.

Elisabeth was seen as the ‘natural favourite’, Lachlan was described as ‘charming’, while James was ‘the brains’ of the family.

Their lives were also mimicked in the HBO series Succession, which follows the Roys who argue over the inheritance of ageing father Logan’s entertainment empire.

Lachlan and James have looked the favourites to continue the dynasty since eldest daughter Elisabeth started funding her own ventures in the 2000s.

But James appeared to fall out of favour in the early 2010s when he was executive chairman of News International – the owners of the News of the World.

On his watch – between 2007 and 2012 – reporters from the newspaper hacked the phones of celebrities, politicians and murder victims.

Amid a huge public outcry, he was forced to shut the newspaper in 2011 and he also resigned as chairman of BSkyB, now Sky UK Limited.

Both James and his father appeared in front of the Leveson Inquiry, which Rupert described as ‘the most humble day of my life’.

Soon after, in 2014, Lachlan returned to the family fold after running a number of other businesses.

He was made non-executive co-chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox by his father, which seemed to set him up as taking over the empire.

The 48-year-old became Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox in 2015 and was named as the Chairman and CEO of the Fox Corporation in March 2019.

Lachlan also became the CEO of Fox News in a reshuffle which put James out of the day-to-day running of the family business in 2018.

James was also handed more responsibility, despite his failings in London, and was made CEO of 21st Century Fox in 2015 and a year later became chair of Sky.

But these were short-lived, as he had to leave Sky in 2018 when Comcast took majority control and left 21st Century Fox when Walt Disney Company took over last year.

While being squeezed out of power in recent years, James has not been afraid to criticise the family firm.

He is known as the more liberal Murdoch brother, while Lachlan’s views seem to be more aligned with those of his conservative father.

James wanted the company to be a globalised news and entertainment brand, whereas Lachlan was pushing for a nationalist and profitable political machine.

The younger brother and his wife Kathryn slammed the family business for promoting climate change ‘denials’ during the Australian bushfire crisis in January.

The pair released a statement saying they were ‘disappointed’ by the coverage of the fires by Fox News and other News Corp outlets.

‘Kathryn and James’s views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known.

‘They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary,’ their statement read.

The ‘denials’ were in reference to allegations arsonists and not climate change were to blame for the destructive wildfires.

His comments were perceived as ‘unprecedented’ and sparked speculation of a feud within the family since he rarely speaks publicly about his role in the business.

And in a revealing interview with the New Yorker last year, James admitted he went ‘periods of time’ without talking to his father.

Meanwhile Lachlan, who is seen to share similar views to his father, has recently remained loyal and not hit out at the family business.

Their relationship has run hot and cold over the years, but it was believed to have been cemented from 2014 when he returned to New York to work for News Corp.

James’s announcement yesterday appears to have quashed any expectation he will take over his father’s empire, especially due to the attack on the family’s media outlets in his statement.

He was even last year reportedly looking to set up a $1billion new project including a liberal news outlet, in stark contrast to his father’s Fox News.

In March it was further suggested he pumped money into start-ups looking to combat fake news.

His firm Lupa Systems was said to have teamed up with Betaworks to create a ‘more sustainable news ecosystem’.

Rupert designed his companies to benefit his family, making certain he and his children always had control.

The tycoon was able to show that plan in action last year, when the sale of Fox’s film and television assets to Disney saw his six children pocket about $2billion.

But Rupert has remained coy over who will take over his business interests when he retires, refusing to name an heir despite making no secret of his preferred child.

It is not his oldest child Prudence or the next in line Elisabeth, who has found incredible success outside the family business in emerging media markets.

It is not James, the son who had stood by his side for decades and weathered the fallout from the hacking scandal and the 2016 sexual assault scandal at Fox News, which saw Roger Ailes ousted.

But it is Lachlan, Murdoch’s older son, who is the ‘golden child’ according to multiple sources.

And the empire looks to be his for the taking – but it is not clear if he is interested in the job.

The family company and its future were the focus of a New York Times piece last year that provided an in depth look at the mogul’s two sons while completely ignoring the lives and accomplishments of his four daughters.

By some accounts, Rupert’s heirs were still battling behind the scenes for control of the empire, with the two top contenders still James and Lachlan until the former called it a day yesterday.

The brothers have had a tumultuous relationship over the years which had become more frayed than ever of recent after Lachlan was promoted over his younger brother by their father, despite James’s previous loyalty to the family firm.

Others claim most of the children have soured on the notion of taking over from their father.

The media mogul is a father of six, who range in age from 61 to 16. The oldest is Prudence, who is Murdoch’s only child with his first wife, Australian model Patricia Booker.

She has held various positions in her father’s companies but now lives in Australia where she is largely focused on raising her three children.

Prue, as she is called by her family, has made it clear she is not interested in taking the reins and did not even attend college after graduating from Dalton in New York.

That does not mean she would oppose seeing her second husband, Alasdair MacLeod, move up the ranks at News Corp – despite her protests about him working with her father, or her offspring – who are Murdoch’s three oldest grandchildren – landing nice roles at the company.

But as Vanity Fair reported back in 2008, Prue is in many ways the one link the family has to reality.

‘She gets away with saying what the others won’t, even things that the others won’t think, and she takes the various family members much less seriously than they do themselves,’ reported the magazine.

‘This involves, not least of all, seeing her three oldest half-siblings – Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James – as, each in his or her way, master-race prototypes.’

It is those three who had long seemed poised to battle it out for their father’s media empire – Elisabeth, 50, Lachlan and James.

All three work in media, with Elisabeth currently experiencing success with Vertical Networks, a startup that provides app-based series that are produced to be viewed in cellular devices.

The relationship between Lachlan and his father has run hot and cold over the years, but that changed in 2014 when Murdoch’s older son returned to New York to work for News Corp. Now, he is the Chairman and CEO of the Fox Corporation.

James, the youngest of the three, had been the most loyal, staying by his father’s side and joining News Corp shortly after he dropped out of Harvard.

That devotion was tested however when Murdoch elected to promote Lachlan over James after he return to work in the US following an extended stint in Australia.

The brothers already strained relationship only got worse when Lachlan informed James of this decision over lunch.

James even briefly quit the company, but then decided to return before then exiting for good.

Murdoch’s youngest children are Grace, 18, and Chloe, 16, the New York-based daughters born to Murdoch’s third wife Wendi Deng.

Chloe is currently attending an Ivy League college while her sister attends private school in Manhattan.

The ambitions of the two teenagers are unknown, but their fiercely intelligent mother has no doubt seen to it the two get no less than their older half-siblings.

James is a longtime environmental advocate. His wife Kathryn works at the Clinton Climate Initiative and the pair are known contributors to the Clinton Foundation.

The couple last month endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by donating $615,000 each to his campaign after previously donating to former candidate Pete Buttigieg.

Rupert and Lachlan said in a statement on James leaving News Corp: ‘We’re grateful to James for his many years of service to the company.’

The short statement added: ‘We wish him the very best in his future endeavors.’

News Corp is one of the two major media conglomerates owned by the Murdochs, the other being Fox Corporation, which was established after The Walt Disney Company acquired the majority of 21st Century Fox last year.

The two sister companies were formed following the split of the original News Corporation, founded in 1980, in 2013.

James previously served as the CEO of 21st Century Fox but stepped down following the sale. Since then, he has worked at the helm of the investment fund Lupa Systems.

News Corp also publishes major papers in Australia and the UK and owns the HarperCollins book publisher.