If you’re a long-time news junkie, you probably remember Don Lemon's time at CNN. After being off of cable news for awhile, the former anchor had entered into a content deal with billionaire Elon Musk. But when that contract fell apart and the Telsa founder refused to pay up, Lemon quickly turned around to sue. Let’s get a little more about the back story of what their agreement was supposed to look like and how it fell apart before we turn to the new lawsuit.
Meet Don Lemon
American journalist Don Lemon has been an iconic face on a number of news and TV programs throughout his career. He started as an anchor with various programs owned by NBC in his early days, such as Today. He later rose to greater fame with a 17-year-career at CNN, until he was fired about a year ago after controversy surrounding allegations for misogyny throughout his long career.
Lemon covered a lot of ground — often literally — as he would travel to the scenes of many important stories that showed the ugly side of America. He was one of the prominent reporters to cover the shooting of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. He covered the trial of George Zimmerman for shooting and killing Treyvon Martin. He was on the scene to break many tragic news stories such as Freddie Gray’s death in police custody, the Boston Marathon bombing, and many mass shootings.
Lemon has been awarded three regional Emmys throughout his career. He’s won a prestigious journalism award for his coverage of the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks in D.C. The charismatic reporter has worked across different news genres, and was a big name on CNN’s international news segments. He was notable for exposing injustice, asking hard questions, and pushing the envelope against powerful American figures. As both a Black American and a gay man, he’s been known to fight to give a voice to minorities.
But what’s he got to do with Elon Musk?
Musk Alienates Advertisers
After Elon Musk overspent to buy Twitter, he wasted no time in purging the company of thousands of employees in a very public firing frenzy, including the company’s top executives. He also reinstated many of the accounts that had previously been banned from the social media platform.
It didn’t help his cause that Musk got backlash for promoting antisemetic content. A lot companies started pulling out of their ad deals with the platform, and the company had a hard time retaining advertisers. This all came at a time when X wasn’t in the greatest financial position to begin with.
The company sought to remedy this by affiliating with celebrities whose reputations they could piggyback off of to retain companies for ad money. One of those celebrities was Don Lemon. Especially since all this came around the same time Lemon had just been dropped by CNN, the guys at X figured he was vulnerable and that both parties could stand to benefit from working together. And the former CNN anchor would also be a notable contrast to some of the even more controversial people that were then tied to X in a way that would put off advertisers such as Tucker Carlson.
A Promising Partnership
X reached out to negotiate an exclusive partnership deal with Lemon. According to Lemon, he was initially wary of partnering with X given the controversies with them going on at the time, but the company was determined to make it work. Musk Tweeted to Lemon along with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to join his platform, writing, “No exclusivity or legal docs required! You will receive our full support. The digital town square is for all.”
Musk and his people at X certainly did a lot to publicize the anticipated partnership with famous people on the left, including Lemon. And it wasn’t just all for the public eye; according to an inside source, X was reaching out directly to Lemon via texts and phone calls.
Musk promised some pretty big perks for Lemon that weren’t just for any X user who wanted to post. Although the exact terms of their agreement haven’t been made public, Musk allegedly promised Lemon $1.5 million in payment for creating content that would be exclusively publicized on X, along with a share of the advertising revenue from those videos. Lemon was apparently promised cash incentives as his X account gained followers, and that his posts would get boosted on the platform in order to attract more followers.
Eventually, Musk was able to convince Lemon to join forces with him.
Musk Does a 180
When Lemon eventually agreed and it came time to launch his content on X, he asked Musk if he would be the first guest on the new show. But by that time, Musk had starting making public statements that showed indifference to the project with Lemon. When he was interviewed on Lemon’s show, he host grilled the billionaire on his politics and his drug use. The exchanges were not warm, with Musk saying, “Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform and you asked for it. Otherwise, I would not do this interview.”
Maybe unsurprisingly then, the next day Lemon’s agent got a text from Musk that their partnership was over. Lemon allegedly tried to salvage the agreement with Musk, but Elon wasn’t having it. And he apparently refused to pay Lemon for holding up his end of the bargain. Lemon took it to court.
Lemon’s Lawsuit
Lask week, Lemon filed a lawsuit against Musk as an individual, X as a corporation, two of Musk’s top people at X, and 100 other unnamed employees or agents of Musk. The journalist brought his complaint in a California state court in San Francisco, claiming six different causes of action. Among them are fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, misappropriation of Lemon’s name and likeness, and unjust enrichment for Musk and X.
Lemon claims that Musk and his company intentionally made false representations to the journalist, promising things they never intended to follow through with. He claims that all of this was done merely for the purpose of being able to publicize the relationship between X and Lemon, and “thereby associate and promote the X brand with Lemon’s good name, likeness, and revered reputation.” He claims this was all done in order to rehabilitate Musk and his company's bad reputation for future commercial gain.
Lemon says that not only had he promoted the X brand to advertisers on his social media account and at events, but he jeopardized his own public reputation by association with X and Musk. He claims that he is owned not only the money he was promised, but also damages for the emotional distress and mental pain and anguish that he suffered as a result of the whole ordeal.
Lemon is asking for a jury trial, so we’ll have to wait and see if that plays out or if the billionaire is willing to pay his ex-partner to settle.
Related Resources:
- Why Does Elon Musk Want to Move Tesla’s Incorporation From Delaware? (FindLaw's Law and Daily Life)
- Elon Musk's Lawyer Might be Sanctioned for Showing Up Uninvited and Being Annoying (FindLaw's Practice of Law)
- Will Your Contract Be Enforced Under the Law? (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
