Ex-CNN star Lemon sues Musk over canceled X show
Don Lemon, former CNN presenter, has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and his social media company X, previously known as Twitter, over the cancellation of a talk show deal.
The lawsuit claims that Musk and X unfairly ended their partnership with Lemon and failed to compensate him after using his name to attract advertisers to the platform.
BBC News has reached out to X for a comment on the lawsuit.
Earlier this year, X had struck deals with Lemon, former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and sports radio host Jim Rome to win back advertisers following a series of controversies.
The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, accuses X of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and misappropriation of Lemon’s name and likeness, according to a post from his legal team, Shegerian & Associates.
The court filing alleges that X had agreed to pay Lemon $1.5 million (£881,000) plus a share of advertising revenue from his content. It also asserts that Musk and X used “false promises and representations” to persuade Lemon into the deal, only to cancel it after he had spent thousands of dollars on show production.
The agreement, which would have seen “The Don Lemon Show” appear on X, fell apart in March after recording the first episode, which featured an interview with Musk.
In a post on X shortly after the deal fell through, Mr. Musk said Mr. Lemon’s approach “was just ‘CNN, but on social media,’ which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying.”
During the interview, which was recorded at Tesla’s headquarters in Texas, Mr Lemon asked Mr Musk about his use of the drug ketamine, as well as the increase of hate speech on X.
Mr Lemon had been with CNN for 17 years when he was fired in April 2023.
The network made the decision after Mr Lemon made on-air comments about then Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley being past her prime.
Shortly after Mr Lemon’s exit from CNN, Mr Musk reached out to him on X.
At the time, Mr Musk was looking to attract advertisers back to the social media platform, which was reeling from a string of controversies that followed the billionaire’s takeover in 2022.
In October, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino announced a partnership deal with celebrity socialite Paris Hilton.
The following month, Ms Hilton pulled an advertising campaign on X by her entertainment company 11:11 Media.
The departure of Ms Hilton’s firm added to the list of advertisers that had cut ties with X over concerns about the platform’s content moderation policies.
