Rupert Murdoch’s quest to amend his family trust to give his eldest son Lachlan total control over his global media empire was effectively killed by a Nevada probate court in December.
But a new report reveals the pain the 93-year-old media kingpin inflicted on the children he sought to strip power from.
The New York Times obtained nearly all of the court documents chronicling the Murdoch family drama, including the transcript of the September trial that saw a Reno probate commissioner reject their attempt to change a family trust to strip his children Elisabeth, 56, Prudence, 66, and James, 52, of their voting powers and give them to Lachlan, 53.
Also included were the rulings that rejected Rupert and Lachlan’s bid and the evidence that showed their private communications in the years leading up to the legal fight.
Washoe County Probate Commissioner Edmund Gorman rejected the Murdochs' attempt to amend the family trust and said the two acted in “bad faith” through trying to do so. He also blasted the pair’s “carefully crafted charade” as an attempt to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles.”
Lachlan had spent years trying to buy out his siblings from the trust, which was established in the 1990s after Murdoch’s second divorce. Designed as irrevocable, the trust awarded each of Murdoch’s four eldest children an equal voting share in his companies. But Lachlan had become—and wanted to remain—Murdoch’s heir apparent, so he sought to buy three of his siblings out at 50 percent of the market value of their stock, according to the Times.
The three siblings repeatedly balked at the offer, leading Murdoch to pursue a new route in 2021: buying James out himself. The patriarch reached out to Prudence, the oldest and most reserved of his children, to see if she could get James to call him on his birthday, according to the Times. She tried to get him to soften his approach to James, such as asking about his work and family, which Murdoch agreed to.
“I know. Not totally stupid,” he replied to her, according to the Times.
The plan failed, and Prudence and Elisabeth stood by James. “All for one and one for all,“ Prudence’s trust director wrote in his diary. ”They can sort out the mess after Rupert dies.”
Still, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch made various entreaties to the siblings before they eventually tried to change the trust. Lachlan asked Elisabeth to replace the elder Murdoch on the Fox Corp. board once he stepped down, though she refused. And Murdoch considered James' offer to join a family vacation before James rescinded the offer at the urging of his own children, according to the Times.
Finally, after years of tangled negotiations and closer unity between James, Elisabeth, and Prudence, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch realized the only step forward was to alter the trust to give Lachlan full voting power. The two developed “Project Family Harmony” to amend the trust to strip the three younger siblings of their voting power after Rupert’s death. The move shocked the siblings.
Prudence initially tried to get Murdoch to reconsider, urging him to avoid cementing a strained relationship with all of his children after an already fractured one with James. “You already lost one son. And you could well lose two daughters over this,” she told Murdoch, according to the Times.
Elisabeth also tried to urge Murdoch to reconsider, later saying she was trying to prevent the elder Murdoch men from a “hijack” of the trust. She urged him to consider an alternative that would appease all his children, but he refused and called James “unsalvageable.”
“You’re being lobbied by James. And you’re going to bend to his will, Murdoch told her, according to the Times.
”Do you think I’m a f--king moron?” she responded.
The special meeting of the trust also blew up, with Elisabeth accusing Murdoch and Lachlan of “raping” the family empire, according to the Times. Rupert still tried to appeal to his children, sending a copy of his remarks to James with a note: “James, still time to talk. Love, Dad. PS, love to see my grandchildren one day.”
Still, the pain appeared to linger. After Rupert sent Prudence flowers for her August birthday, just days before the trial began, she thanked him while also saying he didn’t realize how much he hurt her and Elisabeth. “Nonsense,” he replied.
And Elizabeth and Prudence both declined to attend Murdoch’s fifth wedding last summer. Elizabeth would later say it would have been “too painful” to attend while her father tried to wrestle control away from her and her siblings, according to the Times.
James, meanwhile, had said he was not invited.
