Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk after a $1.5 million per year deal with X collapsed following a tense interview.
The former CNN anchor is suing the Tesla boss for a breach of contract as he claims that Musk has refused to pay him for the deal.
The exclusive deal was made with Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, but it was canceled after the pair had a tense interview.
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It was planned that Lemon would host his own shows on the platform but it all fell apart earlier this year and now Lemon is saying that Musk isn’t keeping up his end of the bargain.
So, what exactly is the billionaire being sued for?
Lemon is suing Musk for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of name and likeness, and unjust enrichment in addition to breach of contract.
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The anchor filed the lawsuit this week in San Francisco state court claiming that Musk made him “false promises” about details of the partnership.
He also claimed that Musk deceptively used his name to promote X.
The deal was first announced in January through a post which said that X was now a “video-first platform” as users were watching videos in 80% of their visits to the site.
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It was planned that Lemon would have his own show, called The Don Lemon Show, which would consist of three 30-minute episodes a week which would cover things like politics, sports and entertainment.
However, after an interview between Lemon and Musk in March, Lemon claimed that the mogul texted him saying “contract terminated”.
In a statement, Carney Shegerian, who is an attorney for Lemon, said: “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.
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“You don’t have to be a genius to see the fraud, negligence, and reputational damage here.”
A spokesperson for X previously defended the termination of the deal, stating: “We reserve the right to make decisions about our business partnerships, and after careful consideration, X decided not to enter into a commercial partnership with the show.”
Things seemed to go south during an interview where Lemon asked Musk about advertisers leaving X.
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Lemon said: “So you said if you kill the company it’s them, but doesn’t the buck stop with you?”
Musk replied with: “Choose your questions carefully, there’s five minutes left.”
After Lemon repeated the question, Musk said: “I acquired X in order to preserve freedom of speech in America, the first amendment and I want to stick to that, and if that means making less money, so be it.”