Newly unsealed court documents from a Nevada probate case have revealed the bitter family tensions behind Rupert Murdoch's decision to hand control of his media empire to his eldest son, Lachlan, ending a long-running succession dispute settled a year ago. The documents, from a late-2024 ruling by probate commissioner Edmund Gorman, show Murdoch viewed his son James as a troublemaker who needed to be cut off from the family trust, while also detailing "petty grievances" and rivalries among his four eldest children, and drawing explicit comparisons to the HBO drama Succession, which the family is said to have inspired.

The ruling details how Murdoch, 95, defended preserving Fox and News Corp as conservative-leaning media voices he considered essential to democracy, and had pushed Lachlan since 2019 to buy out his siblings' stakes, though the commissioner found Lachlan's offers were too low. It also found Lachlan had misled his father about James, including a false claim that James had spoken to a journalist for a book about the family, and criticised Lachlan for a "lack of candor" during the proceedings. James quit the News Corp board in 2020 over editorial disagreements, including on climate coverage, while Murdoch accused him, Prudence and Elisabeth of plotting to remove Lachlan after his death.