Murdoch court battle: Rupert Murdoch and four oldest children set for high-noon Nevada court showdown

He may have dubbed his plan “Project Harmony”. But to anyone observing the high-noon showdown about to unfold between Rupert Murdoch and his four oldest children in a dusty court in Nevada, the nickname looks optimistic.

The 93-year-old tycoon and his offspring are set to square off in a secret legal battle in the desert city of Reno.

At the heart of the case is one question – whether or not Mr Murdoch can successfully change the terms of a confidential family trust in order to hand control of his sprawling media empire to his oldest son Lachlan, 53, whose Right-wing politics closely mirror his father’s.

Mr Murdoch, in his twilight years, is mounting perhaps his most shocking takeover yet: a move that some have suggested would make Logan Roy – the foul-mouthed, domineering mogul of TV drama Succession – blush.

Following an initial “status conference” on Tuesday, the full hearing will begin next Monday.

The Mail has now revealed the sheer depth of the divisions within the family, how eager they are to keep their squabbling private – and bombshell efforts at the eleventh hour to open the full courtroom battle to the public.

For all the money involved in this case – the family trust is said to contain stakes in companies worth $22.5 billion – the dispute itself is relatively straightforward.

Under the terms of his 1999 divorce from his second wife, journalist Anna Murdoch Mann, Mr Murdoch’s children – he then had four of them – were promised equal and “irrevocable” influence in running his newspapers and television channels after his death, as well as equal financial benefit.

But now Mr Murdoch is trying to hand Lachlan the power to outvote his three siblings who have voting rights in the trust: Prudence, 65, Elisabeth, 55, and James, 51.

The tycoon is reportedly estranged from the trio: he is said to believe that they are ungrateful after he made them all multi-billionaires in their own right.

They have been stunned by this extraordinary move and have dug in to protect their rights. It’s worth pointing out that none of the children are set to lose out financially from the proposed new arrangement.

The court case will solely determine who can decide on the commercial and editorial direction of the Murdoch empire: Lachlan or all four of the oldest children together. But perhaps, to Mr Murdoch’s offspring, power matters at least as much as money.

To change the terms of the trust, Mr Murdoch will have to convince the court that he is acting in the interests of all the beneficiaries – including his two youngest children with third wife Wendi Deng – Grace, 23, and Chloe, 21 – who have no voting rights in the trust.

In a bitter foretaste of today’s dispute, Grace and Chloe were added to the trust in 2006.

Mr Murdoch had hoped that they, too, would enjoy voting rights, but the four older children reportedly “baulked” at this prospect, leaving the tycoon “devastated”.

Eventually, the four oldest were gifted between $150 million and $225 million each – and Grace and Chloe were taken into the trust as beneficiaries carrying no votes.

How to convince the court that changing the trust to favour just one of the beneficiaries will in fact benefit them all? Mr Murdoch’s expensive legal team plan to argue that in order to ensure the future success of the trust, all power needs to be concentrated in the hands of one person with the right to outvote the others.

We will see whether or not the judge is convinced. After all, the stakes could scarcely be higher.

The trust controls globally influential media brands including US broadcasting giant Fox News, News Corp (parent company of the Times, Sun, New York Post and Wall Street Journal newspapers) and many other titles and assets.

These have been built up under Mr Murdoch’s control over seven decades since he acquired his first paper in Western Australia in 1956. Mr Murdoch believes that only Lachlan can be trusted to maintain the conservative editorial stance of Fox and News Corp.

If the other three children were allowed to impose their more liberal views, they could bring his painstakingly assembled empire crashing down after his death.

To make matters worse, Mr Murdoch’s lawyers will claim, endless squabbling over the proper commercial direction for the companies could spell disaster for the family and the business.

It’s precisely to avoid this sort of in-fighting that Mr Murdoch has wryly nicknamed his plan “Project Harmony”.

Predictably, the protagonists in this bitter drama are anxious for a pall of secrecy to be cast over the battle.

This explains why the case is being heard more than 2,000 miles from Mr Murdoch’s New York base, in a court dedicated to handling family trusts and estates.

Nevada’s generous probate laws and powerful privacy protections have made it a firm favourite among billionaires.

Nevada probate commissioner Edmund Gorman Jr has “sealed” the case, meaning that the more than 360 documents filed since last October will be hidden from Press and public. Nor will observers be allowed in court.

In his privacy ruling, the commissioner claimed that Press coverage might expose the “whereabouts and travel plans” of the Murdochs as well as other information that could be “exploited by malicious actors”.

The commissioner was evidently unswayed by the compelling public interest in the lives of the world’s most powerful media mogul and his fractious descendants. In June, Mr Murdoch’s wedding to his fifth wife, retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, 67, at his sprawling estate in California, attracted global attention.

That ceremony went off without a hitch – perhaps because Lachlan was the only one of Mr Murdoch’s children to attend.

Speaking to the Mail, a source close to the Murdoch family suggested the current dispute was little more than a legal formality.

“Is this the succession that Rupert wants? The answer is ‘yes’. This is not ‘sidelining’ anyone, it’s about highlighting the leadership that’s in place and continuing that,” they said.

After all, the source pointed out, in 2019, when Mr Murdoch sold his 21st Century Fox film and TV studio to Disney for $106 billion, Lachlan was made chairman and chief executive of what remained: the Fox Corporation. (Each of Mr Murdoch’s six children also enjoyed gifts of $3 billion as a result of the sale.)

And when, last September, Mr Murdoch announced he was stepping down as chair of his media empire, Lachlan took his place. Giving Lachlan key voting rights in the trust, the source argued, will therefore ensure that he remains at the helm for practical purposes. But this perhaps understates the extent of divisions within the family.

Before Mr Murdoch sold 21st Century Fox, the company was run by both Lachlan and his younger brother James.

The two have vastly differing politics – and fell out spectacularly over Fox’s sympathetic treatment of Donald Trump. Only last week, James – who now oversees an investment firm – publicly endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for November’s presidential election.

Elisabeth runs a TV and film production company headquartered in London, while Prudence, Murdoch’s daughter from his first marriage to former flight attendant Patricia Booker, sits on the board of the Times newspapers.

My well-placed source continued: “I don’t think the children have been involved in the business for some time. In one case (Prudence), they never were.“

“The kids were not being sidelined – because they’ve been sidelined (already).”

The prospect of more liberal members of the family taking Fox in a different direction would not be in the “best interests of the company’s financial wellbeing”, the source insisted.

“Rupert and Lachlan share a vision for the company that has been going well since Lachlan took over last year.”

Paddy Manning, for one, paints a more fraught picture of the dispute.

The veteran Australian journalist who published a biography of Lachlan in 2022 and worked on a new major Australian TV series about Mr Murdoch, has told the Mail that the “animosity is real”.

“The two sides remain bitterly divided. It’s a genuine schism,” he said.

“The siblings see this as a betrayal of what their mother had wanted with the settlement of her divorce. This is a 25-year trust that’s been broken.”

As Mr Manning sees it, there is little for Lachlan and his father to lose in their bid to change the terms of the trust – except to damage relations with the rest of the family still further.

In The Successor: The High- Stakes Life Of Lachlan Murdoch, Mr Manning revealed that Lachlan even considered buying out his siblings from the trust in 2019 – but baulked at the multi-billion-dollar price they were demanding.

Mr Manning suggests that the court case in Nevada may be an “attempt to get control without paying for it”.

He disputed the idea that the Murdoch children wanted to drag Fox News and its viewers to the Left. Instead they wanted to rein in alleged conspiracy theories and misinformation on the network, especially ahead of a potential second Trump presidency.

Mr Manning even suggested that the plan to change the trust may not have been Mr Murdoch’s: “Because Lachlan is the one benefitting, it may have started with him and he’s convinced his father to do it. I think that’s very possible. There’s a tendency to believe that Rupert is still always the one pulling the strings but Lachlan is in charge here.”

On Monday, dozens of journalists are expected to make their way to Reno to try to report on a case that has global significance but which is closed to the public.

Yet, tantalisingly, efforts are under way not only to open the sealed case, but to install a camera in the courtroom. If this request is approved, it will provide an unprecedented window into the innermost workings of the Murdoch clan.

Alex Falconi runs the non-profit Our Nevada Judges, advocating for greater public access to courts in the state.

Earlier this year he won a landmark victory guaranteeing the right to access in civil courts, including family matters, and has filed a brief in the Murdoch case saying the Press should be allowed into the trust hearings.

Lawyers representing “Doe 9”, which appears to be a “Murdoch entity”, responded by saying that trust proceedings dated back to English common law courts, which were entitled to substantial secrecy.

Lawyers from Las Vegas firm Solomon Dwiggins Freer & Steadman, which brags on its website that it “aggressively” represents anyone “facing disputes arising out of trust and estate matters”, argued that secrecy was “essential to safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of the parties involved”.

There was even a warning that failure to keep the Murdoch case private could drive away lucrative business: “To remain competitive with other states, preserving the confidentiality of trust companies is essential.”

Mr Falconi believes that is a “shameful” argument: “I can’t believe they put that in. That makes me sick. I don’t think that this idea that Nevada has a reputation for secrecy is something to be proud of.”

The application for Press access is being handled by a different judge and Mr Falconi believes there is a 50:50 chance that it will succeed.

He wants as much attention on this case as possible and says if the courts are “embarrassed and ashamed, they deserve it”.

A representative for James Murdoch declined to comment.

Lawyers acting for James, Elisabeth and Prudence did not respond to the Mail’s requests for comment.

Whatever internal disagreements they may have, they agree at least on preserving their longstanding tradition of omerta.

Whether or not the planet’s most famous media dynasty succeeds in escaping the glare of the cameras in the Nevada desert next week, a decision could be made with momentous consequences not only for them – but for the world’s media, too.