Don Lemon says Elon Musk canceled X deal after taping an interview together

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon landed a big interview for the first episode of his new digital show “The Don Lemon Show,” which was set to start streaming Monday on the social media platform X.

But his interview subject – X owner Elon Musk – apparently wasn’t fond of it. Lemon announced Wednesday that Musk had canceled their deal to stream his show first.

“We had a good conversation,” Lemon wrote in a statement. “Clearly, he felt differently. His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me.”

Lemon said that Musk informed him of the cancellation a few hours after he conducted the interview Friday – a conversation that touched on the upcoming presidential election and Musk’s company SpaceX.

After a lengthy career at CNN, Lemon was fired in late April, a few months after he apologized for making a disparaging comment about Nikki Haley’s age on CNN’s ill-fated morning show, which has since been discontinued.

Soon after, Musk publicly asked Lemon – via a posting on X, previously known as Twitter – whether he had considered hosting a show on his platform, citing its large audience.

Their “content partnership” was announced in early January with some fanfare, though its precise terms – including Lemon’s potential compensation – were not disclosed.

Lemon spoke of X as “the biggest space for free speech in the world” adding that, “I know now more than ever that we need a place for honest debate and discussion without the hall monitors.”

On Wednesday, Lemon said that X “made significant commitments” about the support it would offer his show, though he gave no specific details.

X also announced similar partnerships at the time with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and sports commentator Jim Rome. The service also offers a show streamed by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

A corporate account for X confirmed that it decided to end the deal with Lemon. “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,” the company said. In his own post, Musk criticized Lemon’s show, which he said “was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media,’ which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying.”

The episode featuring Musk will still air on Monday, on both X and YouTube, and Lemon said that he will continue making the show.

“This does not change anything about the show, except for my relationship with Elon and X,” Lemon said in a video. “There’s a whole lot that went down and I’m going to tell you about it in the coming days.”

Lemon then added another tease for his debut episode.