Jimmy Buffett's Mellow Vibes Vanish in Family Feud

Jimmy Buffett sang about a laid-back life, but the fight over his fortune looks anything but. The Wall Street Journal unpacks how the late musician's estimated $275 million estate is now at the center of an ugly family feud. Before Buffett died in 2023, he put his assets in a trust for his wife, Jane, with their three children to inherit the remainder when Jane died. He named her and business manager Richard Mozenter as co-trustees. That seemingly straightforward arrangement has since imploded, with Jane and Mozenter trying to have the other removed as co-trustee. The dispute has also driven a wedge between Jane and daughter Savannah Buffett, who has sided with Mozenter.

"Say good bye to that 75 mil," Jane once texted Savannah, referring to money she might receive in the inheritance, after a relatively mundane dispute involving a car title. At issue in all this: who controls the Margaritaville empire stake, prime real estate from St. Barts to the Hamptons, and how much income the trust will generate for Jane. The case, headed for trial, "has upended the fun-loving vibes the musician spent his life cultivating, with the family seeming rudderless without Jimmy as their figurehead, according to court documents and interviews," writes Katherine Sayre. Read her full story.