The former CNN anchor Don Lemon filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and X on Thursday, claiming the billionaire had not paid him following the collapse of a content agreement with the social media giant.
In January, Mr. Lemon consented to bring his new program to X, the network owned by Mr. Musk, as part of the platform’s endeavor to produce high-quality content in order to draw sponsors.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, Mr. Musk agreed to pay Mr. Lemon a whopping $1.5 million yearly to produce videos exclusively on X, to give him a share of the advertising revenue from his videos, and to award Mr. Lemon additional cash incentives as his account gained followers.
Additionally, Mr. Musk consented to be Mr. Lemon’s first guest on the program. However, the March encounter swiftly soured when Mr. Lemon questioned the millionaire about his political views and drug use.
Mr. Musk then quickly canceled the agreement in the wake of the disastorous interview.
The lawsuit claimed that after being fired by CNN last year, Mr. Lemon thought that this would be a platform for his new show, but he failed to execute a contract formalizing the arrangement.
According to the court document, Mr. Musk promised Mr. Lemon over the phone that X would continue to financially support the show even if he disagreed with the opinions Mr. Lemon expressed and that there was no need to “fill out paperwork.”
Musk has courted controversy in the mainstream media in recent years as he has pivoted to adopting a more adversarial and unapologetically conservative persona along with his decision to prioritize free speech on his social media platform X.
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