Lachlan Murdoch’s On-Again, Off-Again Relationship With the Family Business

Lachlan Murdoch’s path to succession has been rocky at times, but he is finally getting the family prize: sole possession of the keys to his father’s media empire.

Mr. Murdoch, the elder son of Rupert Murdoch, solidified his rise to the top on Thursday when his father, 92, announced that he would retire from the boards of Fox Corporation and News Corporation. They are among the most influential media businesses in the world, with publications and news channels in Europe and the United States that have pushed politics on both continents decidedly to the right for more than three decades.

The move leaves Lachlan Murdoch, 52, as the executive in charge of all day-to-day operations at the companies, whose holdings include Fox broadcasting, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.

The younger Mr. Murdoch is less overtly political than his father; some confidants say he is more interested in negotiating a potential merger than he is in talking to a president or a senator. But as the heir apparent for the past few years, Mr. Murdoch has made significant efforts to prove he is committed to the future of the businesses and aligned with his conservative father politically, and is certain to continue Fox News’s right-wing stance.

He has defended Fox News’s programming and was the chief executive of its parent company as it continually broadcast conspiracy theories and falsehoods pushed by President Donald J. Trump and his allies about the 2020 presidential election. His views have on occasion been further to the right than his father’s, claimed a former News Corp Australia editor, Chris Mitchell, in a recent memoir.

Rupert Murdoch indicated in a note to employees on Thursday that he expected his son to continue the conservative editorial stance that Fox News is known for.