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- Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is stepping down from his role at Fox and News Corp.
- His departure will leave his oldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, as the sole chair of News Corp.
- Rupert Murdoch said he will transition into the role of Chairman Emeritus at Fox and News.
Rupert Murdoch is stepping down from his role at Fox and News Corp., according to a company statement.
"I'm writing to let you all know that I have decided to transition to the role of Chairman Emeritus at Fox and News," Murdoch, 92, wrote in a memo to Fox employees.
"For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change," Murdoch wrote. "But the time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams and a passionate, principled leader in Lachlan who will become sole Chairman of both companies."
His departure will leave his oldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, sole chair of News Corp. while continuing as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp.
Australian-born Murdoch built a global media empire that influenced news, culture, and politics, most prominently right-leaning Fox News, which shaped American media and politics, particularly the Trump presidency. He built his media conglomerate at a time of rapid change in global communications, seeing the potential in satellite TV in the 1990s and then later in social media, acquiring and then selling the first mainstream player, MySpace.
Murdoch's empire has faced a number of black eyes over the years, from revelations of bribery and phone hacking by its London tabloids to sexual harassment scandals.
It weathered one of its biggest challenges in April when it settled the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for $787.5 million, the largest publicly disclosed settlement for a defamation lawsuit in US history. Dominion alleged the network defamed it when Fox hosts Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and Lou Dobbs brought on conspiracy theorist lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell as guests and that Fox News hosts either endorsed or didn't sufficiently push back against the guests' claims that Dominion rigged the presidential election against Donald Trump.
Murdoch's transition comes as media companies battle the acceleration of cord-cutting and audience shift to streaming video while much larger tech giants, including Google and Meta, now dominate the digital advertising market. News Corp., which includes crown jewel The Wall Street Journal, announced it would make a 5% cut in staff this year, or about 1,250 roles, while the Journal grapples with the encroachment of AI and seeks to grow in a tough market for subscribers and digital advertising.
Murdoch's holdings were united as News Corp., until 2013, when they split in two. Nearly a decade later, he briefly explored, then scrapped, the idea of reuniting them.
It's unclear how Murdoch's media empire will change post-Rupert. Lachlan Murdoch, 52, has been CEO since 2019 after the baton switched back and forth between him and his brother James as to who would succeed their father. Rupert chose Lachlan and not James, an outspoken Democrat, in 2019, as Disney's deal to acquire the majority of Fox's cable networks and Hollywood studio assets came together.
Lachlan has gotten credit for pushing Fox further into digital, acquiring streaming service Tubi in 2020, growing its subscription service Fox Nation, and moving into sports betting through Fox's investment in FanDuel.
He's defended Fox News' diversity of opinion. In a 2021 interview with Insider, he said the world has become more polarized nowadays because of social media, which "algorithmically drives people into echo chambers." He's stood by former Fox star Tucker Carlson after he was widely criticized for statements promoting "replacement theory" and questioning the efficacy of COVID vaccines.
And while he's privately criticized Trump, he's also said that the Fox audience supports the former president, suggesting he knows that supporting Trump is good for Fox's business, CNN has reported.