James Murdoch in 2017
Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for National GeographicJames Murdoch, the younger son of Rupert Murdoch, has resigned from News NWS -1.24% Corp’s board of directors, a move that marks his full departure from the family’s businesses.
“My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions,” Mr. Murdoch said in his resignation letter, which was published as part of a company filing released Friday.
Mr. Murdoch had once been widely viewed as the top contender to one day run the family businesses, but in recent years he has been disengaging from his roles at the companies. Last year, he left as chief executive of 21st Century Fox after substantial parts of the company’s entertainment unit were sold to Walt Disney Co.
The News Corp board seat was the last formal role he held at companies controlled by his family.
A spokesman for Mr. Murdoch said he had no additional comment beyond his letter.
Earlier this year, as wildfires raged in his family’s native Australia, James Murdoch publicly criticized coverage of climate change in News Corp’s newspapers and on Fox Corp.’s Fox News.
“We’re grateful to James for his many years of service to the company. We wish him the very best in his future endeavors,” Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch, chief executive and executive chairman of Fox and co-chairman of News Corp’s board, said in a statement.
Rupert Murdoch, 89, remains chairman of Fox and executive chairman of News Corp.
James Murdoch’s political inclinations have been at odds with others in the family empire. In 2017, Mr. Murdoch donated $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League after condemning comments made by President Trump following a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn Murdoch, also have donated over $1 million to political-action committees supporting the presidential campaign of Democratic presumptive candidate Joe Biden.
Since departing from Fox, James Murdoch had launched his own investment fund, Lupa Systems, but had remained on the News Corp board. The Murdoch family are major shareholders in both Fox Corp. and News Corp, which owns Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
News Corp also owns the New York Post, the Times of London and the Sun in the U.K. and dozens of newspapers in Australia.
The younger Mr. Murdoch personally walked away with $2.2 billion from the sale of the Fox assets.
As a result of James Murdoch’s resignation, the News Corp board will be reduced to 10 seats from 11, the company said in Friday’s filing.
James Murdoch joined News Corp. in 1996 and rose through several roles, eventually becoming the chief executive of BSkyB, a European pay-TV broadcaster of which News Corp. owned a substantial portion, and News International, which ran the company’s newspapers in the U.K.
During his tenure running the U.K. newspapers, the company was rocked by a phone-hacking scandal. The fallout led the company to close the News of the World newspaper and pay hundreds of millions in legal fees and fines.
James Murdoch stepped down from his roles at News International and BSkyB, and the parent company, News Corp., was later separated into two publicly traded entities: News Corp, which is composed mostly of newspaper assets, and 21st Century Fox, which was made up of television and entertainment units. Following the Disney sale, 21st Century Fox was renamed Fox Corp.
In 2015, James Murdoch was named chief executive of 21st Century Fox and his brother, Lachlan, became executive co-chairman, as their father began to limit his roles in day-to-day operations at his companies.
Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com
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