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James, who at one point looked like he had front running, was embroiled in the UK hacking scandal and ultimately returned to the US, where he was sent to the empire’s metaphorical gulag.
Elisabeth has been viewed by many to be the most commercially savvy and independently successful of the Murdoch siblings but was cursed with one too many X chromosomes to be considered an appropriate heir to the throne by her conservative father.
While, other than Prudence, each of them has lived their lives in a large game of succession chess, they can now spend the remainder of their time pursuing other goals.
Having claimed the empire’s throne, Lachlan will be judged by the performance of Fox and News Corp and his ability to manage financial and political relationships spanning the US, Australia and the UK, following on from the mastery of his father.
Prudence, Elisabeth and James Murdoch outside a Nevada court in September, 2024Credit: The New York Times
Most importantly, Lachlan will need to manage US President Donald Trump, whose kinship with Rupert has waxed and waned. Most recently this has been under intense stress thanks to Murdoch backing his Wall Street Journal’s publishing of details of a lewd but decades old birthday card allegedly written by Trump to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This is a claim that Trump denies and he is now suing the publisher and Rupert Murdoch.
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The public is not privy to whether there are any clauses in the succession settlement agreement that may limit the empire’s orphans from competing with Fox or News Corp in media or from trash-talking other family members.
In the past, James has been most vocal about his disdain for the media empire and what it stood for. In an explosive Atlantic article this year, he called his father a misogynist, questioned his brother’s business acumen and said Fox was lying to its audience. In 2020 he spoke about the news outlets’ ongoing denial of the climate crisis.
Over the past six years, James has been chief executive of a private investment company he founded, Lupa Systems, and an active philanthropist alongside his wife, Kathryn Hufschmid.
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Controversially, he is also on the board of Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Elisabeth Murdoch is a successful businesswoman in her own right, having founded production house Shine (creator of MasterChef), which she sold to her father in 2011, and more recently co-founded another production company, Sister. She is also the co-founder and chair of Locksmith Animation and is heavily involved in philanthropy.
She has been married three times and has been no stranger to holding strong views, having famously declared at the height of the UK hacking scandal that James had “f—ed the company”.
The refugee Murdoch siblings have opinions, vast wealth and, thanks to their heritage, a large stage. It remains to be seen whether they can resist using that stage.
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