Don Lemon, the former CNN host who was fired by the network after making controversial comments on the air, has sued Elon Musk over the sudden cancelation of his partnership with X $TWTR, formerly known as Twitter.
Lemon was scheduled to host a new show on X — which Musk purchased in 2022 — in March, before it was abruptly canceled following the taping of its first episode, which was a sit-down interview with the billionaire. At the time, Lemon said Musk was “mad” at him over the interview and that Musk’s “free speech absolutism doesn’t apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me.”
Lemon’s lawsuit — which was first reported by The New York Times — was filed Thursday in California Superior Court in San Francisco. Lemon argues that Musk refused to pay him after the deal was canceled. According to the complaint, Musk sent a text to Lemon’s agent that simply said “contract is canceled.”
The world’s richest individual had agreed to pay Lemon an annual salary of $1.5 million to produce and host his content exclusively on X, as part of the platform’s push to boost growth through videos, according to the complaint. Musk had also agreed to pay Lemon a share of the advertising revenue generated by his videos and award additional cash incentives as his social media following increased.
The complaint states that Lemon spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on his show, taking charges for building a production studio, hiring staff, and purchasing equipment. But, Lemon alleges, Musk and X “deliberately misrepresented what they intended to do.”
“Defendants knew that if they accurately represented to Lemon that the purpose and meaning of the exclusive partnership deal was to use Lemon’s name, likeness, reputation, and identity to rehabilitate” Musk and X’s image and draw in advertisers, Lemon would have never agreed to the deal, the complaint states.
Lemon never signed a contract sealing the deal, according to the lawsuit. Musk told him during a phone call that there was no need for a written agreement or to “fill out paperwork,” adding that Lemon would have “full authority” over his work. X CEO Linda Yaccarino also told Lemon he would have total control over his show.
“X executives used Don to prop up their advertising sales pitch, then canceled their partnership and dragged Don’s name through the mud,” Carney Shegerian, a lawyer for Lemon, told the Times in a statement.
The company later pressured Lemon to attend an event with Yaccarino at the Consumer Technology Association’s annual convention, CES, in January, according to the lawsuit. Had he not, the deal would have been canceled.
Over the next two months, Lemon entered production for his show, until the interview with Musk on March 8. After Musk canceled the deal, an X executive informed Lemon that there was no obligation to follow through with the agreement because there was no written contract.
“His approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media’, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying,” Musk said on X a week after the show was taped. “He is just a bad guy, plain and simple,” he added in a post after the episode aired.
Over the hour-plus interview, Lemon questioned Musk about his thoughts on several topics both professional and personal: Tesla $TSLA’s future, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, censorship on social media, allegations of racism, and more. Lemon also asked Musk his drug use; various news outlets have reported that Musk uses the medication ketamine and has previously used LSD, cocaine, and psychedelic mushrooms.