Key Facts

Surprising Fact

Rupert Murdoch once owned New York magazine. He bought its parent company in 1977 before selling it for $650 million to K-III Communications in 1991. Vox acquired it in 2019. James Murdoch told the New York Times that his father’s previous ownership of the magazine holds no special significance for him.

James Murdoch's First Jabs At Rupert's Empire

James and his wife, Kathryn, first condemned News Corp and Fox outlets for what they called the “ongoing denial” of climate change during Australian bushfires in 2020. The younger Murdoch has a long history of advocating for environmental protection, according to The Guardian, while his father has described himself as a “skeptic.” James has said in an interview with The Atlantic that he was "taken aback" by his brother Lachlan's willingness to indulge “reactionary” and “white nativist” ideas in the 2016 election, and said his father pivoted to support Trump when he realized it was good for Fox News' business. “I underestimated the ability of a profit motive to make people do terrible things—to make companies do terrible things,” James said. He told the New York Times he's been arguing with his father about politics "since I was a teenager."

Family Fractures Behind The Media Dynasty

Stories of the Murdoch family all paint the same picture of a cold, business minded patriarch who "wasn’t raising children — he was raising possible successors," one New York Times journalist claimed in the Netflix docuseries, "Dynasty: The Murdochs." Kathryn Murdoch claims her father-in-law spent his sons’ lives “pitting them against each other, but there was always going to be one winner”: Lachlan (the boy’s older sisters were never serious contenders to run the business because Rupert “is a misogynist,” James said of his father to the Atlantic). As he climbed the ranks at the company, James was the heir apparent to his father's empire but Rupert Murdoch reportedly continued to "woo" his “golden child” Lachlan until he agreed to be his father's heir in a "slap in the face" to the younger son. The brothers' relationship was reportedly fractured beyond repair during a deal with Disney that ultimately saw the company buy 21st Century Fox, the Murdoch's movie studio James was running at the time. At a dinner in New York, Lachlan is said to have exploded at Rupert and James, yelling: "If you do this deal, I'm never speaking to any of you again!" and was reportedly briefly hospitalized for an ensuing panic attack. The $52.4 billion deal was reached in 2017, and included security for Lachlan as head of Fox News and left James with no executive position at the company, but he remained on the board of New Corp for years after.

Rupert Moves To Make Lachlan Successor

In 2023, Rupert petitioned to have a decades-old family trust overturned in an effort to choose Lachlan as his sole successor. The three other children who were set to be cut out fought back in a court battle that became increasingly ugly before they reached the settlement last year. The agreement set up a new trust for Lachlan, which ensures his control of the empire until 2050. During the court battle, Rupert Murdoch's lawyers apparently attacked James with questions like: "Have you ever done anything successful on your own?” “Why were you too busy to say ‘Happy birthday’ to your father when he turned 90?” “Does it strike you that, in your account, everything that goes wrong is always somebody else’s fault?"

Inspiration For ‘succession’

The contentious family dynamics of the Murdoch family is the stuff of legend. The family has inspired dozens of on-screen documentaries and dramatizations, most famously serving as a core inspiration for the Emmy-winning HBO show “Succession,” about which there has been much speculation family members themselves were leaking storylines to the show’s writers. Vanity Fair reported Lachlan told Rupert it was James leaking stories to the writers of ‘Succession” (an unnamed source denied the accusation on Lachlan’s behalf). James and Kathryn thought his sister Elizabeth was responsible, the Atlantic reported. While she swore she wasn’t, she reportedly did think for a time that her ex-husband was talking with the writers, and apparently later learned that he’d repeatedly tried, but show creator Jesse Armstrong declined. One of the terms of the divorce settlement terms reached between Rupert Murdoch and his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, reportedly stipulated she couldn’t give story ideas to the writers on the show. Armstrong told the Atlantic he and his writers didn’t need leaks—they simply used press reports as inspiration.

What “succession” Scenes Were Inspired By The Murdochs?

Several of the show's most defining scenes were lifted directly from or heavily inspired by the Murdochs' actual history. A Season 1 episode called "Austerlitz,” in which the family patriarch Logan Roy forces his children to participate in a "therapeutic retreat,” is based on a real-life trip Rupert Murdoch arranged for his children to his ranch in Australia. A New York Times investigation later described it as “another forum for power games and manipulation.” One episode, which sees Logan Roy climb atop a stack of paper boxes to give a rousing speech to employees, is a direct recreation of a famous 2007 moment when Rupert Murdoch stood on paper rolls to address the Wall Street Journal staff. The show took inspiration from real-life health scares of Murdoch’s while traveling for scenes in the show. In 2018, Murdoch suffered a serious back injury while vacationing on Lachlan’s yacht in the Caribbean and was taken by helicopter off the boat and later hospitalized in Los Angeles hospital. In the show, the family patriarch suffers a severe brain hemorrhage/stroke while on a helicopter and seasons later dies in mid-air from a pulmonary embolism.

Crucial Quote

"I think you’d find it really easy," James Murdoch told the Times when asked how he could avoid watching "Succession." "The dramatization of family affairs is as old as anything."

Forbes Valuation

The Murdoch family has an estimated net worth of $23.5 billion.

Key Background

James started at New Corp in its music division in his early 20s in 1996, and eventually rose to replace his father as CEO of 21st Century Fox in 2015. When the movie studio sold to Disney in 2017, James took the money he earned in the deal and founded Lupa Systems, a firm he used to invest in liberal-leaning companies like Vice and Tribeca Enterprises. Lupa is the primary shareholder of MCH Group, owner of Art Basel, and also has investments in tech startups, internet platforms and eco-friendly businesses. The Indian arm of James's office, Bodhi Tree Systems, is backed by the Qatar Investment Authority and has a massive stake in Indian media and streaming joint venture Viacom18. Viacom 18 merged with Disney’s Star India in an $8.5 billion deal in 2024. James Murdoch and his wife have also supported left-leaning news start-ups like The Bulwark and The 19th. In 2020, James resigned his position on the board of News Corp, which he’d held since 2013, citing "disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company's news outlets and certain other strategic decisions."

Further Reading

ForbesAmerica’s Most Valuable Public Family Businesses 2026ForbesHow Much Are The Murdoch Kids Worth Post Succession Battle?By Martina Di LicosaForbesThe Murdoch Succession: A $3.3 Billion Deal And Five Family Office LessonsBy Francois Botha