Lachlan Murdoch

Lachlan Keith Murdoch (born 8 September 1971) is a businessman and mass media heir. He is the son of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. He is the executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, chairman of News Corp, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation. In 2025, Murdoch's net worth was estimated at A$3.21 billion, as published in the Financial Review Rich List.

Murdoch was born on 8 September 1971 at Wimbledon Hospital in Wimbledon, London, the eldest son of Australian-born American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and his second wife, Scottish journalist and author Anna Maria dePeyster (née Torv; formerly Murdoch). He was raised in New York City, where his father owned the New York Post, after moving there with his family at the age of three.

He received his primary and secondary education at the Aspen Country Day School in Aspen, Colorado; then Dalton School and Trinity School in Manhattan, New York City; and then at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

In 1989 he took a gap year, during which he spent three months in Sydney, Australia, doing a menial job for the family business Daily Mirror, while his father was in the city for business.

In 1994, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Princeton University. While at Princeton, he studied philosophy with Béatrice Longuenesse and Alan Hajek. His senior thesis was on Kantian philosophy.

At the age of 22 or 23, Murdoch was appointed general manager of Queensland Newspapers, the publisher of Brisbane's Courier-Mail, and at this time became friends with James Packer, also the son of a media mogul. He became publisher of Australia's first national paper, The Australian, and in 1995, was appointed deputy CEO of News Limited in Australia, and in 1996 was appointed to the News Corporation board. After getting married in 1999, he was in 2000 appointed deputy chief operating officer of News Corp's global print operations, promoted from his previous roles as executive director of News Corp (1996), and senior executive vice-president (1999–2000).

With a personal interest in Australian rugby league, on 30 March 1995 Murdoch was at the first Super League meeting in the Atanaskovic Hartnell offices in Sydney. He and former Brisbane Broncos chief John Ribot signed up leading Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs players on documents which were not legally effective. Murdoch was the Broncos' number one ticket holder. This venture lost money.

Encouraged to invest in One.Tel by his friend Australian businessman James Packer, the son of television network owner Kerry Packer, Murdoch was extensively criticised for encouraging News Corporation's multi-hundred million-dollar investment in the start-up telecommunications company in the late 1990s. In April 2014, Murdoch and Packer agreed to an A$40 million settlement over the failure of One.Tel. The settlement was approved by the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 17 April 2014, with A$14.93 million to be paid by the Packer family's Consolidated Press Holdings, A$11.77 million to be paid by Packer's Crown Resorts and A$13.3 million to be paid by News Corp. During this time, Murdoch and his wife lived near his father in New York, and socialised with glamorous people, including expats Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman.

Murdoch led an initial $10.75 million investment, of which only $2.25 million was in cash, in REA Group, and subsequently championed the retention of the investment over the objections of those who wished to sell it. The company later emerged as Australia's market leader in online real estate advertising, known as Realestate.com.au, and in 2014 was assessed as worth more than $3.6 billion to News Corp.

For the year 2001, Murdoch earned a salary of A$2.59 million. During his time at News Corp, Murdoch had oversight of HarperCollins and the company's lines of business in Australia, including REA. He also served on the board of Foxtel and as chairman of Fox Television stations, and was the publisher of the New York Post. While at the New York Post, its circulation grew by over 40 per cent.

In 2002, Murdoch gave the Andrew Olle Media Lecture.

Murdoch is one of the founding patrons (along with Anthony Pratt, Peter Lowy, and Lisa Fox) of an organisation called "Advance", formerly known as the Young Australian Professionals in America. They held a benefit dinner in November 2005.

Apart from full siblings Elisabeth and James Murdoch, Lachlan has three half-siblings, an elder half-sister Prudence, and two younger sisters by his father's third marriage, Grace and Chloe. In later years, tensions between the two brothers have been reported.

He holds Australian citizenship and has often stated that he sees himself as Australian and his home is in Australia. Like his brother James, as he was born in the UK before 1983, he is likely automatically a British citizen otherwise than by descent as well, though he may not have opted to exercise that citizenship. He does not have as strong ties to the UK as his father and siblings, not having spent a lot of time there. Having lived and worked for extended periods in the US and acquired an American accent, it is often assumed that he is American, but he said in a 2001 interview that he considers himself Australian and wishes he could lose the accent.

In June 2005, Murdoch received the Press & Outdoor Advertising "media person of the year" award in Cannes.

In September 2024, the ABC aired a three-part documentary for their Australian Story program entitled: "Making Lachlan Murdoch". Murdoch did not participate in its production, which was made by journalist Paddy Manning and introduced by veteran ABC journalist Leigh Sales, but it does feature a 2001 interview with him, and his billionaire friend James Packer is interviewed. The style of the documentary has no voice-overs, allowing the people featured to talk in their own voices.

The opening episode, "Blood" focuses on his father, Rupert, and grandfather Sir Keith Murdoch. The second episode is called "Money". The series is also aired on YouTube.