Don Lemon Sues Elon Musk Following Canned X/Twitter Talk Show
Don Lemon has sued Elon Musk for breach of contract after the cancellation of his X/Twitter talk show.
Variety reports that Lemon and his legal team filed the lawsuit on Thursday (Aug. 1) against the tech mind and his social media platform, with a litany of accusations. The suit accuses Musk’s company of fraud, misappropriation of Lemon’s name and likeness, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of express contract.
The Don Lemon Show was set to premiere on March 18. However, on March 13, the talking head revealed that Musk canceled the show hours after he completed his planned interview with the billionaire. The suit claims that Musk canceled the partnership by way of a text message that simply read: “Contract is canceled.” Interestingly enough, the two men never officially had an agreement that the former CNN anchor signed with X/Twitter.
The suit reveals that Lemon and Musk had a phone call to cement the partnership on June 16, 2023. “Lemon expressed reservations about entering into a partnership with X due to the ongoing controversies surrounding the X platform,” the suit reads. “In response, and to induce Lemon to enter into an exclusive partnership deal with X, Musk represented to Lemon that he would have full authority and control over the work he produced even if disliked by Defendants, and that there would be no need for a formal written agreement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’”
Carney Shegerian, Lemon’s attorney, released a statement regarding her client’s lawsuit. Shegerian explains that the suit is “straightforward” and details how Lemon’s likeness was unfairly used.
“This case is straightforward. X executives used Don to prop up their advertising sales pitch, then canceled their partnership and dragged Don’s name through the mud,” the statement reads. “You don’t have to be a genius to see the fraud, negligence, and reputational damage here. Don is an accomplished and hard-hitting journalist who’s committed to defending his good name and holding X’s executives accountable. We look forward to our day in court.”
Don Lemon’s suit is seeking an unidentified amount of monetary damages as a potential reward. But the legal documents do note that Elon Musk and X/Twitter offered and agreed to pay Lemon $1.5 million. $200,000 of that sum was supposed to be paid up-front within three business days, while the remainder of the cash would be paid in quarterly installments.
As for the deal between Musk and Lemon, additional incentives for the Baton Rouge journalist included the option to renew the one-year deal two times with the same terms; bonus payments; $500,000 in advertising credits on X/Twitter; 60% of the gross ad revenue that Musk’s platform generated from Lemon’s content; and that all of the content created by Don Lemon for X/Twitter would be owned by the journalist himself.
During the time of The Don Lemon Show’s cancellation in March, Elon Musk took to X/Twitter to address the sudden fall out with Lemon.
“[Lemon] is welcome to monetize on this platform, just like everyone else. What we aren’t going to do is guarantee minimum payments to him, as he was demanding, which would be going beyond everyone else! Unfortunately, all [Lemon] wants to do is rehash the dying CNN business model ‘but on social media’, which will do even worse here than it did on cable TV,” he typed.
