21st Century Fox boss breaks with father, major Trump ally Rupert Murdoch, to tell staff that president’s reaction ‘concerns all of us as Americans and free people’

James Murdoch – chief executive of 21st Century Fox and son of Donald Trump ally Rupert Murdoch – has become one of the most prominent voices yet to condemn the US president’s response to neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville.

In a memo to colleagues obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, Murdoch pledged to donate $1m to the Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat anti-semitism.

Rupert Murdoch is known to speak regularly to the US president and 21st Century Fox is the parent company of Fox News, which is a regular cheerleader for Trump.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Murdoch is hosted by Trump at his Aberdeen golf course in June 2016. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

“[W]hat we watched this last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the president of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people,” Murdoch, 44, writes in the memo.

“These events remind us all why vigilance against hate and bigotry is an eternal obligation – a necessary discipline for the preservation of our way of life and our ideals. The presence of hate in our society was appallingly laid bare as we watched swastikas brandished on the streets of Charlottesville and acts of brutal terrorism and violence perpetrated by a racist mob.”

Murdoch adds: “I can’t even believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists. Democrats, Republicans, and others must all agree on this, and it compromises nothing for them to do so.”

He goes on to say that he and his wife, Kathryn, are donating $1m to the Anti-Defamation League in the wake of the tragedy, which left one civil rights activist dead. On Wednesday, Kathryn tweeted a link to a Politico article headlined, Time for My Fellow Republicans to Stand Up and Be Counted, in which Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for George W Bush, denounced Trump and called on politicians to put country before party.

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Business leaders have been abandoning Trump since his bellicose press conference when he blamed Saturday’s violence in Charlottesville on “both sides” and claimed that among the white supremacists involved there were “very fine people”. On Thursday it emerged that the presidential advisory council on infrastructure will disband along with two panels that Trump hastily scrapped on Wednesday when faced with mass resignations. Some senior Republicans, including Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, have also turned against him.

The relationship between Trump, 71, and 86-year-old Rupert Murdoch, the current chairman and acting CEO of Fox News, goes back decades. Earlier this year the Australian-born media mogul was ranked highest in a New York Times list of Trump’s top advisers outside the White House, someone the president speaks to “on the phone every week”.

Fox News has remained loyal to Trump through scandal after scandal, although even some of its hosts have spoken out over the Charlottesville fallout. The network has been rocked by a slew of sexual misconduct lawsuits against various presenters and executives. It also ran a fabricated a story about the circumstances surrounding the death of Democratic party aide Seth Rich.