Former CNN host Don Lemon is suing billionaire Elon Musk, claiming the tech billionaire canceled a deal between them after a tense interview.
Lemon filed the lawsuit against Musk and X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday, claiming Musk agreed to pay Lemon $1.5 million annually to produce exclusive videos on the platform before backing out. The New York Times reports this.
“The Great Replacement Theory is a neo-Nazi trope,” Lemon told Musk in the interview. “It’s in the neo-Nazi manifesto…It’s referenced by the Buffalo mass shooter in his manifesto, where ten black people were murdered in Buffalo. It’s the actual title of the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto. Fifty-one people in the Muslim mosque were killed.”
Musk responded: “Just because I quote something doesn’t mean I agree with everything in it. It’s just something that I want…I think…this is something that people should think about.”
Lemon did not sign a contract on the agreement because Musk told him during a phone call that there would be no need to “fill out paperwork,” according to the lawsuit.
“X executives used Don to support their ad sales pitches,” Carney Shegerian, an attorney for Lemon, said in a statement to the Times, “then canceled their partnership and dragged Don’s name through the mud,”