Rupert Murdoch, arguably the most powerful person in media, is calling it quits.
The 92-year-old announced Thursday he would step down as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. in mid-November. His son, Lachlan Murdoch, will become sole chair of News Corp. and continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corporation.
Rupert Murdoch will become chairman emeritus at both companies.
"I congratulate my father on his remarkable 70-year career,” said Lachlan Murdoch in a statement. “We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted.”
In a farewell note to employees, the elder Murdoch urged employees to keep fighting “self-serving bureaucracies” and “elites.”
“Our companies are in robust health, as am I,” Rupert Murdoch wrote. “We have every reason to be optimistic about the coming years — I certainly am, and plan to be here to participate in them. But the battle for the freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom of thought, has never been more intense.”
Murdoch built a media empire that has shifted opinions throughout the world. Among News Corp.’s holdings are Dow Jones (which includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Marketwatch), The New York Post, The Sun and The Times in London, and HarperCollins publishing. News Corp. also owns several other businesses, ranging from realtor.com to a collection of radio stations.
The crown jewel in his empire, though, is Fox News, which has become one of the most influential television networks in the U.S.—particularly for shifting American politics to the hard right under the leadership of disgraced former chief Roger Ailes, now deceased—and has topped the cable news ratings since its emergence in the 1990s.
The outlet has had a tumultuous 2023, though, agreeing to pay a $787.5 million settlement in the Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit. Not long after that, the network parted ways in less than amicable fashion with its top star, Tucker Carlson, prompting a plunge in Fox stock—although it's up more than 5% year to date as of press time. Murdoch's long-anticipated retirement has been the subject of years of speculation—and even the source material for the HBO smash hit Succession, so the question remains: Why did he retire now? It may be that the Dominion settlement played a role in influencing the timing of Murdoch's announcement.
The Dominion lawsuit exemplified Fox News' controversial role in American politics, as the voting equipment manufacturer brought the suit over on-air accusations by Fox hosts of rigging votes in the 2020 election. This echoed claims by the election's loser, Donald Trump, who has been indicted for multiple violations of the law during his presidency, including the attempt to overturn the election that provoked the historic insurrection as the Capitol building was swarmed with far-right rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.
While many in the far right have left Fox behind and embraced smaller networks, Fox will still be a central part of the 2024 election and hosted the first debate among most Republican candidates. With his departure, Murdoch will not be as intimately involved in the next campaign, but said he doesn’t plan on staying out of it completely.
“For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change,” he wrote. “Self-serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose. Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.”
Murdoch's nearly 70-year career
Murdoch started his career in his native Australia, where in 1954 he took over News Limited, the company his father ran. Under Murdoch’s leadership, News Limited would continue to expand as it gobbled up papers across Australia, while founding several others. All of News Limited’s papers would end up following a similar formula of tabloid journalism that would become a staple of Murdoch's media empire.
In 1969, Murdoch expanded to Britain, a country with a history of tabloid journalism, purchasing The News of the World. A year later he would acquire The Sun, another British daily. By 1974, Murdoch entered the U.S. market by purchasing a local paper in San Antonio. Over the next 15 years, he would be involved in countless acquisitions and sales of papers across the country. Not all, however, were what some might consider classic Murdoch properties; he formerly owned the Village Voice and New York magazine, two outlets known for chronicling the lifestyle of New York’s hip, downtown scene. Murdoch eventually was able to engineer deals for two genuinely respected papers—one in the U.S. and one in Britain—when he purchased The Times of London in 1981.
The 1980s and 1990s saw Murdoch expand his media empire beyond newspapers as he amassed vast holdings in a sprawling network of book publishers, radio stations, and television networks. The latter in particular would be the medium that would come to define his influence on American culture. In 1985, Murdoch acquired Twentieth Century–Fox Film Corporation , which would become 20th Century Fox, an entertainment company that made feature films, had a sports network, and cable news. With the founding of Fox News in 1996, which initially combined conventional news reporting with impassioned conservative editorial, Murdoch would establish what would become the top-rated cable news channel in the country. Its influence over conservative politics, and therefore U.S. politics generally, would effectively make him a kingmaker as politicians sought access to Fox News’ particularly loyal audience.
At heart a newspaperman, though, the crown jewel of his publishing empire came together when he purchase Dow Jones and its flagship newspaper The Wall Street Journal in 2007 after a long courtship of its owners, the Bancroft family.
In 2019, 20th Century Fox agreed to a $71.3 billion merger with Disney, which agreed to purchase all of Fox’s film and TV assets. Notably, not included in the deal were Fox’s news and sports properties.
