Nepo babies fight for control
August 21, 2024
It seems a bit unkind to refer to players in their 40s, 60s and 70s as nepo babies but, as they say in Hollywood: “whatever”.
Is it just a coincidence that a third nepo has joined the fray – the never-ending fray – over who will win control of Paramount? Edgar Bronfman Jr – scion of the Seagram drinks empire – is determined to rain on the parade of David Ellison (son of Oracle’s Larry) as he tries to complete his Sundance Media merger with Shari Redstone’s (daughter of founder Sumner) Paramount.
It seems media is no longer a first-generation opportunity. All the founder-owners are to be found in tech, where their ability to deliver anything, without making anything much, makes them bigger and more powerful than any media company whose content they deliver.
And while we know a fair bit about their, normally quite nerdy, eccentricities, they generally try and keep a low profile. With the obvious exception of one Elon Musk. I wonder if in twenty years time, their offspring will be running the shop or using the shop’s money to swashbuckle through other sectors.
Interestingly, the only company where related nepo babies – i.e. siblings – are at war is News Corp where the patriarch is still around to pull, or try and pull, the strings. At one time or another each of the children active in the business; James, Lachlan and Elisabeth, have been touted as successors. For most of that time, Lachlan seemed the least likely, often shunted off to the backwaters. But now that the pared-down empire relies so heavily on Fox News, whose purveyance of right-wing headbanging would make even The Sun cringe, Lachlan is the only one with the stomach and sympathies for the job. So, Rupert is tinkering with the family trusts to make his Succession so. Someone has to fill the void now that the TV series has ended.
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