Who owns Fox Corporation and what stake did Rupert Murdoch hold in 2019 and 2023?

1. Grabbing the headline: What the original claims say and why they matter

The raw claims assembled from the provided material are threefold: Fox Corporation is a publicly traded spin-off formed in March 2019; the Murdoch family trust exerts controlling influence through a concentrated voting stake (commonly described as about 39–44% of voting shares); and Rupert Murdoch’s personal position shifted between 2019 and 2023 as operational control moved toward his son Lachlan. Those claims matter because voting control, not mere economic ownership, determines corporate direction — including editorial oversight and strategic decisions — and the difference between a family trust’s stake and Rupert’s individual stake is central to understanding who actually controlled Fox during and after the spin-off ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

2. The corporate fact: How Fox Corporation’s ownership structure is described in the sources

All analyses agree Fox Corp emerged from the March 2019 carve‑out of 21st Century Fox and that the Murdoch family exercises decisive influence through a family trust holding roughly 40% of voting power, a figure that appears in multiple accounts in the provided set. Sources note Lachlan Murdoch as the executive chair/CEO and emphasize that the family’s Class B shares grant disproportionate voting rights. The persistent emphasis across accounts is that corporate control is concentrated—not broadly dispersed among public shareholders—which explains why changes in the family’s internal arrangements (trust amendments, succession) ripple across Fox’s governance and markets ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

3. 2019: What Rupert Murdoch’s stake and role looked like immediately after the Disney deal

After the March 2019 Disney acquisition of much of 21st Century Fox, the remainder became New Fox (Fox Corporation). Reporting in the provided material indicates Rupert Murdoch retained prominent leadership as chairman at that point and the Murdoch family trust retained a large voting bloc—commonly reported near 39–40%—but the analyses do not consistently parse how much of that voting power was Rupert’s personal holding versus trust-held shares controlled collectively by family arrangements. The key, corroborated element is that the family trust, not a single free-floating personal stake, provided the effective control that kept Murdoch influence high even if his personal, direct stake was not always separately quantified in the cited materials ^{[5] [2] [6]}.

4. 2023: The leadership handoff and reported stake changes — what is solid and what is disputed

By 2023 Rupert Murdoch stepped back from day‑to‑day chairmanship roles and Lachlan Murdoch assumed top operational and governance responsibilities, with Rupert named chairman emeritus; sources agree the family trust remained the centerpiece of control. The supplied analyses report Rupert’s retirement in November 2023 and note board changes, but they diverge on whether Rupert’s personal percentage shifted materially between 2019 and 2023. The consistent, verifiable fact is operational control moved to Lachlan while the family trust continued to anchor voting power; whether Rupert retained a separate, named percentage stake in 2023 or had already placed shares into trust structures is not uniformly specified in the materials ^{[1] [4] [3]}.

5. Reconciling the conflicting numbers and the wider context for readers

The differences across the supplied analyses arise from conflating three distinct metrics: (A) total economic ownership (public float vs family shares), (B) voting control via dual‑class shares or trust holdings (the clearest common figure near 40%), and (C) Rupert Murdoch’s personal direct percentage versus family/trust holdings. The reliable takeaway from the set is that the Murdoch family trust held the decisive voting stake after 2019 (~39–44%) and that Lachlan became the operational leader by 2023, while specifics of Rupert’s individual stake are inconsistently reported in these materials. For precise, up‑to‑date percentages of Rupert’s personal holdings one must consult SEC filings (proxy statements) and trust documents; the analyses provided do not contain a single uncontested numeric for Rupert individually beyond family‑level voting stakes ^{[2] [3]}.

Conclusion: The factual foundation is clear—Fox Corp is controlled by the Murdoch family trust with roughly 40% voting power after the 2019 spin‑off, and control and leadership moved decisively toward Lachlan Murdoch by 2023. The remaining uncertainty in the provided materials concerns how much of that control was labeled as Rupert’s personal stake versus trust-held family shares, a distinction the analyses themselves flag but do not resolve with a consistent number ^{[1] [2] [3]}.