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 stories, the previous CNN host Don Lemon has formally filed a lawsuit in opposition to Elon Musk, the proprietor of the social media platform X, previously Twitter. The go well with, 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 identify and likeness, and fraud. It comes 5 months after his partnership take care of Musk to supply unique journalistic content material was nixed when Musk backed out of the deal after an interview with Lemon in March by way of textual content message. Lemon is searching for 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 identify via the mud,” mentioned Don Lemon’s legal professional Carney R. Shergerian in an announcement. 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 acknowledged 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 can be no want for a proper written settlement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’” After the break up, Lemon spoke out concerning the interview: “All through our dialog, I saved reiterating to him that though it was tense at instances, I assumed it was good for individuals to see and listen to our change, and that they might be taught from our dialog. … However apparently, free speech absolutism doesn’t apply in terms of 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 mentioned in a submit in March that Lemon “is welcome to monetize on this platform, identical 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!”
