Former CNN News Anchor Don Lemon Files Lawsuit Against Elon Musk And X

Elon Musk (photo: @elonmusk)

JAKARTA - Former CNN anchor Don Lemon finally filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk, after months of media platform social X companies ending his unfair cooperation agreement.

In a lawsuit filed with the California High Court in San Francisco on Thursday, August 1, Lemon said that Elon Musk's company refused to pay for it and used its media name to attract advertisers.

Lemon's breakdown of the partnership took place in March this year after a controversial interview with Musk who, according to the complaint, had promised Lemon that he would be free to handle content at the event.

Lemon reportedly signed an exclusive partnership agreement with X in January 2024, after months of negotiations. At that time, Lemon's lawsuit claimed X had agreed to pay Lemon at least $1.5 million, with additional payments as incentives and part of advertising revenue.

"This case is easy. Executive X uses Don to shore up their advertising sales promotions, then cancels their partnership and drags Don's name through mud," Lemon's lawyer Carney Shegerian quoted Reuters as saying.

Lemon was originally contacted by X in June 2023 regarding a request for cooperation. Then in December, Lemon met with executives X, namely CEO Linda Yaccarino and Brett Weitz for dinner. At that time, Lemon expressed her doubts about joining X.

A few weeks after the meeting, Weitz sent a message to Lemon, saying "You're going to get a lot (a lot of money) this year"

As part of the deal, Lemon agreed to produce 10 short videos per month and one long video per week and publish the content exclusively on X for a 24-hour period before it could be distributed to other platforms.

Lemon's lawsuit also states that the deal guarantees where Lemon will earn $1.5 million, where the first 200,000 (IDR 3.2 billion) will be paid up in advance, and the remaining funds will be paid in the quarter, and Lemon will also receive additional funds depending on the number of followers and the amount of ad revenue earned.

However, this deal fell apart when Lemon interviewed Musk for the first episode of 'The Don Lemon Show' on March 8. There, Lemon asked about the details of Musk's meeting with Donald Trump.

He said, at the event Musk looked annoyed when he was asked about his own controversial post on X. "I don't need to answer reporters' questions," Musk told Lemon at the time.

Don't, the only reason I did this interview was because you were using platform X, and you asked for it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have done this interview," Musk continued.

And after the interview, Musk sent a text message to Lemon's agent saying the partnership and contract were cancelled. Around that time, Weitz also spoke to Lemon by telephone and said the defendants would not pay for it or follow up with the promises set previously.