Any sighting of News Corp chairman Lachlan Murdoch at the company’s Sydney headquarters in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s legal threats was always going to set tongues wagging.
And so it did last week, when the billionaire media scion walked the halls of Holt Street just days after Trump filed his USD10 billion ($15.5 billion) defamation lawsuit over a Wall Street Journal report referencing a 2003 birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein signed by Trump.
The younger Murdoch, who splits his time between the United States and Australia, does from time to time show his face at the company’s Surry Hills offices when he’s in town. But the timing of this visit sent the intrigue into overdrive.
This week, Lachlan Murdoch is expected to be stateside for the full-year earnings of both News Corp and Fox Corp, according to people briefed on his plans. But the results for both companies, whose stock prices are up on the NASDAQ more than 20% and 45% respectively over the last year, are not likely to be weighing on his mind.
