Supply: Arturo Holmes / Getty
Former CNN host Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk and his social media platform X for a breach of contract after their content material partnership deal was nixed by the tech mogul.
In keeping with reviews, the previous CNN host Don Lemon has formally filed a lawsuit towards Elon Musk, the proprietor of the social media platform X, previously Twitter. The swimsuit, filed in a San Francisco county courtroom on Thursday (Aug. 1), alleges that Musk dedicated a breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of Lemon’s title and likeness, and fraud. It comes 5 months after his partnership cope with Musk to supply unique journalistic content material was nixed when Musk backed out of the deal after an interview with Lemon in March through textual content message. Lemon is in search of an undisclosed quantity in damages, claiming he wasn’t paid by Musk.
“This case is easy. X executives used Don to prop up their promoting gross sales pitch, then canceled their partnership and dragged Don’s title by the mud,” stated Don Lemon’s lawyer Carney R. Shergerian in a press release. The lawsuit alleges that Musk agreed to pay Lemon $1.5 million beneath the partnership, with $200,000 paid up-front and incentives together with bonus funds for reaching efficiency thresholds and an choice to renew the one-year deal twice with the identical phrases.
Nevertheless, there was no signed settlement paperwork. Within the submitting, Lemon said that he had reservations about coming into into the partnership however “Musk represented to Lemon that he would have full authority and management over the work he produced even when disliked by Defendants, and that there could be no want for a proper written settlement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’” After the cut up, Lemon spoke out in regards to the interview: “All through our dialog, I saved reiterating to him that though it was tense at occasions, I believed it was good for individuals to see and listen to our change, and that they might study from our dialog. … However apparently, free speech absolutism doesn’t apply relating to questions on him from individuals like me.”
Lemon additionally claims that Musk “tweeted negatively about Lemon repeatedly” after the deal’s cancellation to his greater than 192 million followers on X. Musk stated in a publish in March that Lemon “is welcome to monetize on this platform, similar to everybody else. What we aren’t going to do is assure minimal funds to him, as he was demanding, which might be going past everybody else!”
