Don Lemon announced on Wednesday that X owner Elon Musk has canceled the deal for his upcoming talkshow on the platform. Lemon, a former CNN anchor, says Musk terminated the partnership hours after he interviewed the multibillionaire for the first episode of the show.
“Elon Musk has canceled the partnership I had with X, which they announced as part of their public commitment to amplifying more diverse voices on their platform,” Lemon wrote in a statement. “He informed me of his decision hours after an interview I conducted with him on Friday.”
Despite the canceled deal with X, “The Don Lemon Show” will live on. The interview with Musk will remain the premiere episode of the show and is scheduled to air on March 18 on YouTube, podcast channels and X. Lemon, who was fired from CNN last year after 13 years with the company, says the episode will be “just the first of many.”
In a statement published on X’s business account, the company said that while Lemon’s show is “welcome to publish” on X, the social network has decided to not enter into a commercial partnership with it.
“The Don Lemon Show is welcome to publish its content on X, without censorship, as we believe in providing a platform for creators to scale their work and connect with new communities,” the statement reads. “However, like any enterprise, 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.”
Musk said in his own post that the show’s “approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media,’ which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying.”
Lemon says Musk willingly agreed to the interview and that his questions were “respectful,” covering topics like SpaceX and the presidential election. He notes that the pair had a “good conversation” but that Musk clearly felt differently.
Lemon’s show was one of the first original shows slated to launch on X, as Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino have been seeking to turn the social media site into a “video first” platform. The show’s episodes were expected to air three times a week exclusively first on the platform. In January, X announced two other original shows alongside Lemon’s: one hosted by former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and one by former Fox Sports host Jim Rome.
