Media mogul Rupert Murdoch says he is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, with his son Lachlan to head both companies.
In a memo to employees, Murdoch said ‘the time is right’ for him to take on ‘different roles’.
Murdoch, 92, launched Fox News in 1996. It is now the most watched TV news channel in the US.
Murdoch said he will transition to the role of Chairman Emeritus of both firms in mid-November.
“Our companies are in robust health, as am I. Our opportunities far exceed our commercial challenges,” he wrote. “We have every reason to be optimistic about the coming years – I certainly am, and plan to be here to participate in them.”
Lachlan Murdoch, 52, is the son of Rupert Murdoch and his second wife, Anna Maria dePeyster. The billionaire patriarch has been married four times and has six children – many of whom followed their father into the family business.
The question of succession had largely come down to the second, third and fourth – Elisabeth, Lachlan and James.
Lachlan, 52, emerged as the heir apparent during his time as an executive in the late 1990s. However, he left the business in 2005 after a feud with then boss of Fox News, Roger Ailes. Lachlan returned to his father’s empire in 2014 and has held top positions ever since.
James Murdoch, the more liberally-minded son, quit the News Corp board in 2020 because of ‘disagreements over certain editorial content’ and other grievances with the direction of the company.
Elisabeth, 55, held various high-ranking roles in the business but started her own television company, Shine, which produced shows like MasterChef and The Biggest Loser.
The transition comes during a turbulent year for Fox, which in April agreed to pay a $787.5 million settlement after being sued by voting machine company Dominion over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election.
The network is still facing a second, similar lawsuit from another voting technology firm, Smartmatic, seeking an even larger sum of $2.7 billion.
Then on April 25, Fox announced it would ‘part ways’ with Tucker Carlson, its highest rated TV host – amid reports the decision came from the very top.
The Murdoch move falls a year before the US presidential election, in which right-leaning Fox News has significant influence. The network is hosting a number of debates between Republicans vying to be the party’s 2024 White House candidate.
Journalist Michael Wolff is set to release a highly anticipated tell-all book about Fox’s ruling family in just a few days, titled The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty. A second Murdoch book, by CNN media journalist Brian Stelter, will be published on November 14.
In his memo to staff, Rupert Murdoch vowed to continue to be involved in the ‘contest of ideas’.
He also criticised other media outlets as being ‘in cahoots’ with a ‘rarefied class’ of elites who he accused of ‘peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth’.
In a statement, Lachlan Murdoch said that his father ‘will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies’.
The elder Murdoch began his career in his native Australia in the 1950s, eventually buying the News of the World and The Sun newspapers in the UK in 1969.
He later purchased a number of US publications including the New York Post.
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