Fox News has been a pernicious influence in US public life. It has promoted extreme right wing policies, cultivated hatred of immigrants, indulged racists, targeted minorities, and in general been on the wrong side of almost every major social issue.
Rupert Murdoch, the founder of Fox News and owner of other major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the UK-based Times and Sun, has been challenged by three of his children who are fighting to prevent him from changing the terms of the irrevocable trust (worth $1.49 billion) he created to take over his empire when he dies. The closed hearing before a probate judge began on September 16 in Reno, Nevada. We will likely not know what is going on until either a settlement is reached that everyone agrees to, or the case goes to court because one or the other side appeals the probate judge’s decision.
In a nutshell, Murdoch has six children by his first three wives. According to this report, “The trust was formed at the time of the 1999 divorce of Rupert from his second wife, Anna Murdoch Mann, the mother of James, Lachlan and Elisabeth. She wanted to ensure her children had a future ownership stake in the Murdoch empire. The trust was “irrevocable,” meaning it would be difficult to alter.”
Under the terms of the trust, Murdoch’s four eldest children (from his first two wives) would end up sharing equally the 40% voting power over the father’s empire. But while the eldest son Lachlan shares his father’s political views, the other three Prudence (from his first wife), Elisabeth, and James have gone in a different direction. In fact, James has endorsed Kamala Harris. That may be why the patriarch wanted to change the terms of the trust so that Lachlan would inherit all the controlling power of 40%.
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