Elon Musk’s X cancels collaboration with Don Lemon before his new show even starts

EAST HAMPTON, NY, JUNE 8, 2020: CNN anchor Don Lemon says he has found his niche in the network’s coverage of the death of George Floyd and the civil unrest in response. As the only African-American primetime anchor in cable news, he seizes the opportunity to help advance the national discourse on race and the use of police power. He also helps boost CNN’s ratings to the highest levels in history.
(Kirk McKoy/Los Angles Times)

Elon Musk’s X cancels collaboration with Don Lemon before his new show even starts

Stephen Battaglio

March 13, 2024

Don Lemon got his first lesson in business with

Mercurial X owner

Elon Musk

the mercurial owner of social media platform X.

The former CNN host interviewed Musk for the first edition of his new podcast, “The Don Lemon Show,” which was set to debut next week on X, formerly known as Twitter, and others.

social media online

platforms.

Lemon said in an X-post on Wednesday that Musk was

evidently

unhappy with the sitdown and terminated the deal to bring the program to the platform.

The

episode program

airs Monday on YouTube and other platforms. Lemon said he had the

program interview

also on X.

“This hasn’t changed anything about the show other than my relationship with Elon and X,” Lemon said in a video message.

X announced in January that it had a deal to premiere The Don Lemon Show before it became available

elsewhere on other sites platforms

.

Lemon invited Tesla’s billionaire founder to his first program. Musk agreed and the interview took place without restrictions on Tuesday.

Lemon said his questions were “respectful and broad” and covered topics ranging from SpaceX to the presidential election.

‘We had a good conversation’ Lemon said in a statement about X. “It’s clear he thought differently. His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas shared doesn’t seem to address questions from people like me.”

In a post that was shared but no longer appears on Musk’s X account, the entrepreneur criticized Lemon’s handling of the interview.

“His approach was basically ‘CNN but on social media,’ which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying,” Musk wrote. “And instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was actually just Jeff Zucker speaking through Don, so it lacked authenticity.”

Zucker is the former CNN boss who boosted Lemon’s career at the cable news channel.

Musk’s message added that Lemon is still welcome to use the X platform to build viewership for his new program.

Lemon had a largely successful 17-year stint at CNN, where he became more of a commentator in the latter part of his tenure. The network scored the best ratings in its history in 2020, when Lemon held the 10 p.m.

After CNN became part of Warner Bros. in 2022. Discovery, the network hired Chris Licht to run the news channel with a mandate to move it more to the political center and feature more Republicans.

Lemon, who has been a fierce critic of former President Trump, was moved from his primetime role to a new ensemble morning program in 2022 after years as a solo act. The belief within much of CNN is that he was set up to fail.

Lemon was fired on April 24

2023

. He collected what was left of his CNN salary, believed to be around $20 million, and began eyeing the podcast space for his next move.

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