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Rupert Murdoch is in a \u201csecret\u201d battle <\/a>to wrestle control of his vast media empire from three of his politically moderate children, and grant it to his eldest son Lachlan, who will preserve its conservative bent, according to the New York Times<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Murdoch went to court late last year in a bid to increase Lachlan\u2019s voting power in the Murdoch Family Trust \u2013 which is thought to hold the family\u2019s $19.5 billion assets<\/a> \u2013\u00a0 at the expense of his three other children, James, Elisabeth, and Prudence, who are uncomfortable with the media empire\u2019s rightward shift, <\/em>the Times<\/em><\/a> <\/em>reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n Murdoch\u2019s three other children have reportedly hired their own legal team to contest their father\u2019s plans, \u201cblindsided<\/a>\u201d by the move. It\u2019s the latest \u2018Succession<\/em>-style<\/a>\u2019 drama to unfold among parental benefactors and their nepo-babies, who have undergone intensive cultural scrutiny<\/a> in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, Murdoch\u2019s family is said to be the inspiration for the HBO-produced drama, which focuses on the intrigue involving a family that controls an international media conglomerate.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, who are the real Succession<\/em> nepo-babies? Murdoch, who has been married five times, has six children, but only four are relevant to this case. Murdoch\u2019s trust currently hands control of the family business to the four oldest children. His two youngest daughters are only 21 and 23, while the rest of the children are at least 50 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Murdoch family \u2013 through its trust \u2013 controls two similar-sounding corporations that are actually separate: Fox<\/a> Corporation and News Corporation. Fox Corporation owns Fox News, all 29 of the Fox television stations, Fox sports, and other Fox subsidiaries. News Corporation is another media conglomerate that owns the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, The Times<\/em> in the U.K., the New York Post, <\/em>and many other local papers that lean right.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lachlan Murdoch<\/strong><\/p>\n Lachlan Murdoch, at 52, is Murdoch\u2019s oldest son, and the media-mogul is hoping Lachlan will inherit the entirety of his empire.\u00a0<\/p>\n He is currently the CEO and chairman of the Fox Corporation. He assumed the role in 2019, following Disney\u2019s $71 billion acquisition<\/a> of 21st Century Fox, where he was executive chairman. Before the merger, he served as executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, starting in 2015\u2014 while his brother, James, was CEO of what was then Fox\u2019s entertainment business. The two had a kind of \u201ccompetitive collaboration\u201d until James quit in 2017, the Associated Press <\/em>reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lachlan wasn\u2019t always part of the family business, however. In 2005, 33-year-old Lachlan abruptly resigned from his executive position in the News Corporation\u2014the media conglomerate that includes the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, The Times<\/em> in the U.K., and the New York Post\u2014<\/em>after a feud<\/a> with then-boss of Fox News, Roger Ailes. He thought his father should\u2019ve backed him in the dispute, and vowed never to return to the patriarch\u2019s company again.\u00a0<\/p>\n That changed in 2014, amidst a phone-hacking scandal and a divorce that wreaked havoc on the eldest Murdoch\u2019s life. Lachlan returned to chair 21st Century Fox, to \u201chelp his dad,\u201d Paddy Manning, an Australian journalist who wrote The Successor<\/em>, a biography of Lachlan, told<\/a> BBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lachlan is married to Australian actress and model Sarah O\u2019Hare, and the couple has three children. According to Manning, it is \u201cno secret,\u201d , that Lachlan and his father are wary of U.S. Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, but both feel they have \u201cno choice\u201d but to rally behind him.\u00a0<\/p>\n James Murdoch<\/strong><\/p>\n James is Lachlan\u2019s younger brother, and, like Lachlan, was born from their father\u2019s second marriage to Scottish-born journalist Anna Maria Torv. Unlike Lachlan, James is known as the \u201cliberal\u201d of the family, and has thus had a harder time accepting responsibility over his father\u2019s conservative empire.\u00a0<\/p>\n He resigned<\/a> from the board of News Corp.<\/a> in 2020, due to \u201cdisagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company\u2019s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions,\u201d James wrote in his resignation letter<\/a>, without elaborating on the differences.<\/p>\n James and his wife Kathryn have publicly criticized<\/a> the media operations of various News Corp.-owned publications that they believed expressed doubts about climate change. The issue is dear to the couple\u2014Kathryn is a noted climate change activist who once served as director of strategy and communications for the Clinton Climate Initiative, a nonprofit established by former President Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n James and Kathryn Murdoch reportedly donated $615,000 each to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n James also founded the private investment firm Lupa Systems in 2019. The firm has invested in various companies, including liberal media outlet Vice Media<\/a> and research firm Morning Consult.<\/p>\n He also serves as a board member<\/a> of Elon Musk\u2019s company, Tesla<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Elisabeth Murdoch<\/strong><\/p>\n Like her brothers, Elisabeth was a product of her father\u2019s second marriage. However, she faced challenges receiving the same leadership roles and responsibilities her siblings were granted.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the late \u201990s, Elisabeth served as managing director of Sky Networks for British Sky Broadcasting, but left the company in the 2000s after reports<\/a> that she was being overlooked for the position of chief executive.\u00a0<\/p>\n She founded Vertical Networks in 2015, a media company that produces mini-shows to air on Snapchat<\/a>. In 2018, Vertical Networks averaged 50 million monthly active viewers and 2.3 billion monthly views across its content including its 10 Snapchat and Facebook<\/a> shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2o19, Whistle<\/a>, a digital sports and entertainment media company, acquired Vertical Networks<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n She started another production company in 2017, Sister, which has been behind hit television series Broadchurch<\/em> and Chernobyl<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n She is said to be the inspiration for the character Shiv in Succession<\/em>, which her daughter, Charlotte Freud, said is a very accurate representation. (Freud is the product of Elisabeth\u2019s marriage to public relations\u00a0 specialist Matthew Freud, who is the great-grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. The couple married in 2001 and divorced 13 years later.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Prudence Murdoch Macleod<\/strong><\/p>\n Prudence Murdoch MacLeod is Murdoch\u2019s oldest child, and was born from his marriage\u00a0 from his first wife, Patricia.<\/p>\n Prudence has been described<\/a> as \u201cthe only one of [Rupert Murdoch\u2019s] children not directly competing for his business affections.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Prudence didn\u2019t completely distance herself from News Corp. and has held several roles within the company over the years. She recently sat on the board of Times Newspapers, Ltd. from December 2010 to March 2022, according to the U.K. publisher\u2019s website<\/a>. Times Newspapers is a subsidiary of News UK, which is owned by News Corp.<\/p>\n In 1989, Prue married Alasdair MacLeod, an Eton-educated businessman who began working for his father-in-law. They have three children.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n