James Murdoch
James Murdoch

James Murdoch, the estranged son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, appears poised to walk away with a fortune from an early investment in Elon Musk's SpaceX that could dwarf what he ever earned from his family's media empire, according to new calculations shared with Fortune.

James, 53, invested an estimated $120 million in SpaceX before the rocket and satellite company went public earlier this year in the largest initial public offering in history. That stake could now be worth as much as $7.5 billion, according to calculations by Franco Granda, senior research analyst for private company coverage at Pitchbook. The valuation had not previously been publicly disclosed.

The financial details emerged from public records tied to a 2023 court case brought by a Tesla shareholder challenging Musk's disputed $56 billion compensation package. That litigation revealed that James Murdoch had purchased three separate tranches of SpaceX stock. Two of those tranches, worth $50 million each, were acquired in 2019 and 2020 through a private investment vehicle believed to be Lupa Systems, the firm Murdoch founded in 2019 where he serves as the primary beneficiary alongside staff and partners. He separately made a personal investment of $20 million in 2019. Combined, those holdings are now estimated to be worth between $6.573 billion and $7.44 billion, according to Pitchbook's analysis.

While SpaceX's public offering documents do not mention James Murdoch by name, the filing details stock awards granted to Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen with an expiration date of 2030, valuing the underlying stock at $4.40 per share, figures that offer clues to the value shareholders held before the IPO. Several caveats complicate any precise estimate of Murdoch's current windfall. He could have sold shares along the way, and the stock has undergone multiple dilutions, including a five-for-one stock split SpaceX shareholders approved in May. The exact dates of his stock acquisitions are not fully public, though media industry executives have reportedly been circulating rumors about the scale of his potential gains.

Fortune reached out to Blair Effron, a partner at Centerview Partners, which has advised the Murdoch family on investment matters. "As a friend of James, I'll pass on speaking," Effron said. A representative for James Murdoch did not provide comment before publication.

Any windfall from the SpaceX stake would carry particular significance given the fractured relationship between James and his father. The younger Murdoch's split from Rupert became final after the elder Murdoch chose his other son, Lachlan Murdoch, to succeed him atop News Corp. The private family dispute later spilled into public view through reporting by The New York Times and The Atlantic detailing the extent of the animosity between father and son. In an interview with The Atlantic, James said he believed his father had fed questions to a lawyer during the family's internal legal fight, including one that asked, "Have you ever done anything successful on your own?"

Last year, a Nevada probate court examined an effort by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch to alter the longstanding Murdoch Family Trust, a change that would have stripped voting rights from James and his sisters, Liz and Prue. A probate commissioner ruled against the proposed change, and following an appeal, the parties reached an agreement under which each of the three siblings received a $1.1 billion payout in exchange for surrendering their stock in News Corp and Fox.

James Murdoch stepped down as chief executive of 21st Century Fox after the company sold the majority of its assets to Disney in a $71.3 billion deal completed in 2019, a transaction that netted him roughly $2.2 billion. He went on to establish Lupa Systems that same year, the period during which SpaceX began launching the broadband satellites that would become Starlink, a business Murdoch understood well given his prior experience running satellite pay-TV ventures Sky in the United Kingdom and Star in Asia.

Murdoch's relationship with Musk dates back decades. According to court filings from the Tesla compensation dispute, the two men first met in the late 1990s, when Musk was building Zip2, an early online city guide for newspapers, while Murdoch ran digital operations at what was then simply known as News Corp. The two reconnected in the mid-2000s after Murdoch ordered an electric Tesla Roadster, and the relationship deepened through family vacations to Israel, Mexico and the Bahamas. Musk later added James Murdoch to Tesla's board, where he remains listed as an independent director who joined in July 2017.

Murdoch has separately profited from his Tesla holdings. Share sales tied to his JRM Rev Trust have generated roughly $107 million since spring of last year, according to SEC filings. Tesla itself owns roughly 19 million shares of SpaceX, a stake that could indirectly benefit Murdoch further given his continued position on Tesla's board, amid ongoing market speculation about a potential merger between the two Musk-controlled companies.

Since leaving Fox, Murdoch has built a diversified investment portfolio spanning media, technology and the arts. He recently completed a $300 million deal to acquire a significant stake in Vox Media, owner of New York magazine and a range of niche websites and podcasts. His other holdings include comic book publisher and studio AWA, the Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal-backed Tribeca Enterprises, and MCH Group, the holding company behind the Art Basel exhibition. He also holds an interest in an Indian streaming media joint venture through Bodhi Tree Systems, backed in part by Comcast and the Qatar Investment Authority.

Jon Miller, chief executive of TPG-backed Integrated Media and a former AOL chief executive who previously served as chief digital officer at News Corp, said Murdoch's apparent SpaceX success reflects a consistent pattern in his investing career. "To me this is no surprise, James has been a savvy global technology investor for decades," Miller said.

Veteran media analyst Brian Wieser of advisory firm Madison and Wall cautioned that the precise scale of Murdoch's potential windfall remains difficult to verify but said any gain is likely substantial given the trajectory of SpaceX's valuation. "Given that James Murdoch has been in the SpaceX orbit for a while, since Tesla, it's unsurprising that he's benefited financially," Wieser said. "And if so, it's very plausible that someone like James Murdoch could end up making a lot more from the holdings of SpaceX than they ever would from holding traditional media companies. Though that presumes they can get liquid, holding the shares doesn't mean anything if you can't sell them."

Read more