James Murdoch Buys Vox, New York Magazine Portfolio For $300M—Charging Into His Father’s Industry

BreakingBusinessJames Murdoch Buys Vox, New York Magazine Portfolio For $300M—Charging Into His Father’s IndustryByMary Whitfill Roeloffs,Forbes Staff. Mary Roeloffs is a Forbes breaking news reporter covering pop culture.Follow AuthorMay 20, 2026, 10:00am EDTToplineThe youngest son of legendary conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch—who publicly split from his “misogynistic” and “twisted” father in recent years—will acquire roughly half of left-leaning Vox Media in a move that makes his company a sudden major player in U.S. media.James Murdoch on Oct. 13, 2014 in Cannes, France. FilmMagicKey FactsJames Murdoch, who has been at very public odds with his father and News Corp since resigning from the company’s board in 2020 and losing a much-watched power battle with his older brother, Lachlan, will buy the Vox podcast network, Vox.com and New York magazine in a reported $300 million deal that will operate it as a subsidiary within his company, Lupa Systems. The acquisition makes Murdoch a bigger player in the same industry dominated by his father, now 95 years old, who started building his empire in Adelaide, Australia, in the 1950s, and grew to now include the Fox Corporation (including Fox News, Fox Sports and local TV stations) and News Corp (The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, publisher HarperCollins and many UK and Australia news outlets).James Murdoch has criticized his father’s media companies for knowingly “lying” to its audience about climate change and fueling right-wing conspiracy theories to the benefit of President Donald Trump.While Rupert Murdoch attended Trump’s 2025 inauguration, James Murdoch donated more than $20 million to Joe Biden and groups supporting him in 2020. The Murdoch family was caught up in a public battle for News Corp, where Rupert aimed to cut James, 53, and his sisters, Prudence, 67, and Elisabeth, 57 out of the family trust in an effort to ensure his company will pass solely to his eldest and conservatively like-minded so...