Don Lemon attends The 15th Annual CNN Heroes: All-Star Tribute at American Museum of Natural History on December 12, 2021 in New York City.
Mike Coppola | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon announced Wednesday that X owner Elon Musk has canceled a partnership in which Lemon would host a new show on the social network.
Lemon said he was informed of the decision to cancel the deal just hours after he taped an interview with Musk for the premiere of The Don Lemon Show on March 18.
“We had a good conversation. Clearly he felt differently,” Lemon said of the interview in a statement Wednesday. “His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me.”
“There were no restrictions on the interview that he willingly agreed to, and my questions were respectful and wide ranging, covering everything from SpaceX to the presidential election,” Lemon’s statement said.
Lemon intends to be paid for the partnership with X, according to Allison Gollust, a spokesperson for the former cable news anchor and the former chief marketing officer at CNN.
“Don has a deal with X and expects to be paid for it. If we have to go to court we will,” Gollust said in a statement to CNBC.
Musk claimed in a post on X Wednesday that “instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don, so lacked authenticity. All this said, Lemon/Zucker are of course welcome to build their viewership on this platform along with everyone else.” Zucker is the former president of CNN.
Musk has called himself a First Amendment and free speech advocate for years. When he took over Twitter, he reinstated accounts that had been permanently suspended under prior management, including that of former President Donald Trump. At the same time, he has demonstrated little tolerance for his employees’ free speech and has banned or suspended several critics on X since…
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