Don Lemon Sues Elon Musk and X, Alleging Fraud and Breach of Contract Over Canceled Content Deal
Attorneys for former CNN journalist Don Lemon sued Elon Musk and X (formerly known as Twitter), accusing the tech mogul and his social media company of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of Lemon’s name and likeness, and breach of express contract.
Lemon’s attorneys filed the lawsuit Aug. 1 in the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco. A copy of the complaint is at this link.
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Reps for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An autoreply from the company’s PR mailbox said, “Busy now, please check back later.”
The lawsuit comes after Lemon entered into a content partnership deal with Musk and X in January 2024 to host an interview show available exclusively on the X platform and create other original content. Musk canceled the partnership in March 2024, via text to Lemon’s agent with the words “contract is canceled,” according to the journalist’s lawyers.
Lemon’s lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.
According to the suit, Musk and X agreed to pay Lemon $1.5 million (with $200,000 paid up-front within three business days and the remainder paid in quarterly installments) under the pact.
Per the complaint, the deal also included additional incentives including: the option to renew the one-year deal two times with the same terms, at Lemon’s sole discretion; 60% of the gross ad revenue that X received for programmatic advertising generated from Lemon’s content on X; performance threshold bonus payments (for example, $250,000 for reaching 4 million followers and up to $1 million for reaching 10 million); $500,000 in advertising credits on X; 10% of the net revenue that X received once it exceeded $350,000 for content creators that Lemon referred to X for a period of 48 months; and that all content created by Lemon originating on or distributed on X was wholly owned by Lemon.
Lemon did not have a signed agreement with X. According to the lawsuit, Lemon had a phone call on June 16, 2023, with Musk, who asked Lemon to enter into an exclusive partnership deal with X. Per the suit, “Lemon expressed reservations about entering into a partnership with X due to the ongoing controversies surrounding the X platform. 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.’”
Lemon’s attorney Carney Shegerian said in a statement: “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. 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.”
Musk — who has more than 192 million followers on X — has “tweeted negatively about Lemon repeatedly” since March 2024, Lemon’s attorneys alleged.
According to Lemon, Musk backed out of the content deal just a few hours after Lemon sat down with the tech mogul for a contentious interview for the new X show. “Elon Musk is mad at me,” Lemon said in a video at the time. Regarding the Musk interview, Lemon said, “Throughout our conversation, I kept reiterating to him that although it was tense at times, I thought it was good for people to see and hear our exchange, and that they would learn from our conversation. … But apparently, free speech absolutism doesn’t apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me.”
About the contract termination, X said in a statement in March, “‘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. 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, in a post on X in March referring to Lemon with the lemon emoji, “?? 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 ?? 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.”
Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023 after 17 years. He had faced allegations of inappropriate behavior toward women at the network, according to a Variety report.
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