Do we like them?

Do we like Lachlan Murdoch?

Our score: 3 out of 10. Some real giving to children's research, set against running a network that paid out over false 2020 election claims.

Lachlan is Rupert Murdoch's eldest son and the one the old man picked to carry the crown. In September 2025 he and Rupert bought out his three older siblings, Prudence, Elisabeth and James, and the old family trust was replaced by a new one that Lachlan controls. NPR reported he will run both Fox Corp and News Corp after his father's death. Proper real-life Succession, with a nastier court fight in Nevada.

The big stain on his company is the Dominion case. In April 2023 Fox paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle over false claims about the 2020 election, and said it acknowledged “the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” The depositions that came out showed Rupert and senior Fox staff privately doubting the stolen-election story while it stayed on air. Al Jazeera's account names Rupert, not Lachlan, in those emails, so the point is who runs the place, not what Lachlan wrote.

Then there was Crikey. In 2022 the Australian site ran an opinion piece on the January 6 insurrection, and his lawyers said it implied he had conspired to overturn the 2020 US election. He sued the publisher and two journalists for defamation; Crikey said it stood by the piece and wanted to defend it in court. He dropped the case in April 2023, and The New Daily reported he later paid about $1.3 million of Crikey's legal costs. Not a great look for a bloke who runs a news empire.

On the harm check, we found no slur or campaign against trans people, migrants or anyone else in his own words. What counts against him is the platform. NPR reported that his brother James objected to Fox's Jan 6 coverage, its support for Trump and its dismissal of climate change, and that Rupert and Lachlan argued the companies needed consistent conservative principles to keep audiences loyal. In 2018 he said of his network's output, “I'm not embarrassed by what they do at all.” Being conservative isn't a fail; running the platform for the false claims is the problem.

The recent thing is the Smartmatic case, the second big voting-machine suit against Fox. In May 2026 the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court granted Fox extra discovery, giving the defence more time before a trial. No verdict or settlement had been reported in the coverage we read. So the question of what Fox told viewers about 2020 is still hanging over his head.

The good stuff is real but thin in what we could verify. Lachlan and his wife Sarah were reported to be making the lead donation to launch the Horizon Fund, a permanent endowment for the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, around its 40th anniversary gala in 2026. That's genuine support for kids' health research. It is also, honestly, about the whole list we could confirm.