Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is suing his once-employer, Elon Musk, after Musk strangled Lemon’s X-hosted talk show in the womb following an adversarial interview between the two of them.
Back in January, Musk announced that Lemon would be hosting a show on X. At the time, rightwing programming on X—including shows headed by Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and Alex Jones—were all taking off. In an apparent effort to showcase his fealty to the concept of “fairness,” Musk advertised an upcoming program led by the former CNN anchor. The Don Lemon Show, Musk said, would prove that the “digital town square is for all,” meaning that X was a place that supported ideologies of all stripes. However, to kick off his show, Lemon made the fateful decision to record and air an hour-long, un-edited interviewed with Musk himself—a decision that immediately led to the show’s cancellation.
Lemon took the kid gloves off for the interview, battering the tech mogul with a flurry of questions about everything from trans rights to Musk’s adversarial relationship with X’s advertisers, to the rise in hate speech on the platform, to the billionaire’s own drug use. At one point, pinned down by ongoing rhetorical fire, Musk fell back on claims made in his Walter-Isaacson-penned hagiography, claiming his “tough childhood” helped explain why he was such an “intense person” (arguably, this phrase may have been Lemon’s codeword for “asshole”).
At any rate, Musk apparently didn’t enjoy the interview very much, because Lemon’s show was cancelled a day later. “Apparently, free speech absolutism doesn’t apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me,” said Lemon, in a video posted to X, shortly after the deal was nuked.
Now, Lemon has sued both Musk and X, and claims that he was tricked into the business arrangement under “false pretenses.” The lawsuit accuses X executives and Musk of providing Lemon with “false promises and representations,” noting that while Lemon was told he would be entering into a profitable, long-lasting business relationship, the real “purpose” of the partnership was to temporarily use Lemon’s “name, likeness, reputation, and identity to rehabilitate Defendants reputation and draw in advertisers to the X platform.” The suit notes the drastic downturn in advertising revenue that X suffered just prior to the deal.
Lemon says that he was promised “full authority and control over the work he produced even if disliked by Defendants.” However, after Lemon spent hundreds of thousands of dollars forming a company, hiring staff, and establishing a production space for the show, Musk put the kibosh on the show, texting Lemon’s lawyer that the “contract is cancelled” a mere day after their interview, the lawsuit claims.
Lemon has continued to produce his show, and even promotes segments of it on X, though the franchise would have apparently been much more profitable had the contract with the platform continued. The lawsuit claims X had offered to pay Lemon $1.5 million a year, during which time he would have been obligated to create one piece of “long-form” content per week, as well as 10 pieces of short-form content a month. Additionally, Lemon would have been entitled to “60 percent of the gross advertising revenue that X received for programmatic advertising” generated by his content.
The suit claims that the X leadership ultimately “failed to compensate him, citing to false pretenses for their breach of the partnership agreement.” The suit now seeks economic damages, punitive damages, and compensation for attorneys’ fees, among other things.
Gizmodo reached out to Musk via X and will update this story if he responds.
Don LemonElon MuskTWITTERX
Forty-eight kids will be admitted for the 2024-2025 school year.
Musk says he'll give the Venezuelan president a free ride to Mars if he loses.
Yes, that means what you think it means.
Trump folks still give AI way too much credit as a reliable tool.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a ban on all AI-generated voices after seeing the video.
Take a second to check this box in your settings.
We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our sites.©2024 GIZMODO USA LLC. All rights reserved.
Mode
Follow us
Mode
Follow us
Source: Gizmodo