Elon Musk Sued By Former CNN Anchor Over Cancelled X Deal

Elon Musk’s impulsive actions have again triggered another lawsuit – this time from a high profile former news anchor for CNN.

It was back in March this year when Elon Musk abruptly cancelled the contract of former CNN anchor Don Lemon to host a talk show on X (formerly Twitter).

Musk had cancelled the arrangement, after he had been challenged by Lemon over the platform’s content moderation practices during the first interview for the new talk show.

Cancelled talk show

During that interview, Musk had admitted to Lemon that “you are upsetting me”.

Musk had also defended keeping up several antisemitic and racist posts on the platform, stating they were not illegal.

“So, Don, you love censorship, is what you’re saying?” Musk said during the interview.

Lemon replied that he believed in moderation, to which Musk replied: “Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship.”

After the interview was taped, Musk texted Lemon saying “contract terminated.”

“His approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media’, which doesn’t work,” Musk later said in a post, adding that Lemon was welcome to build viewership on the platform.

Lemon however published the Musk interview on YouTube, and said that “his commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me”.

The full interview can be found here.

Musk sued

Now four months later Reuters has reported that Don Lemon has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk on Thursday, alleging Musk unfairly terminated their deal, refused to pay him, and used the media personality’s name to attract advertisers.

The lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, a legal filing showed.

The lawsuit claimed that X agreed to pay Lemon at least $1.5 million with additional payments as incentives and a part of the advertising revenue.

“This case is straightforward. X executives used Don to prop up their advertising sales pitch, then cancelled their partnership and dragged Don’s name through the mud,” Lemon’s attorney, Carney Shegerian, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Reuters also noted that Elon Musk’s X had in January 2024 signed Don Lemon, as well as former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and sports radio host Jim Rome, part of an effort to grow video content on the site and bring advertisers back to its platform.

X has struggled to retain advertisers amid a series of controversies ever since Musk acquired the company in late 2022. Indeed, X’s ad revenues are projected to be for 2024 half of what they were in 2022, before Musk took control.