Don Lemon announced on Wednesday that his X show was canceled by Elon Musk, just hours after their interview.
“Elon Musk has ended the partnership I had with X, which they announced as part of their public commitment to amplifying more diverse voices on their platform,” Lemon stated on Wednesday morning. “He told me about his decision hours after an interview I did with him on Friday.”
The interview, which Lemon teased Tuesday would highlight Musk ““like you’ve never seen him before,” will still be the first episode of “The Don Lemon Show,” according to the statement, and will premiere on Monday, March 18 on YouTube, podcast platforms, and X.
Lemon mentioned there were “no limitations” placed on their interview — which covered everything from SpaceX to the presidential election — and added he thought they had a “good conversation.”
“Clearly he felt differently,” Lemon said of Musk. “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 concluded his statement by noting the X cancellation does not mean the end of “The Don Lemon Show,” assuring that the interview with Musk is “just the first of many episodes.”
“While Elon goes back on his word, I will be doubling down on my commitment to free speech and I cannot wait to get started,” Lemon wrote.
The former CNN anchor also posted a video to X explaining the cancellation, where he assured viewers the cancellation “does not change anything about the show, except for [his] relationship with Elon and X,” adding that Musk is “mad at [him].
The news comes just over two months after Lemon and X announced their video content deal in early January, which was unveiled alongside partnerships with former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and sports talk show host Jim Rome.
At the time, Lemon boasted that his new show would “available to everyone, easily, whenever and wherever you want it, streaming on the platforms where the conversations are happening. And you’ll find it first on X, the biggest space for free speech in the world.”
After serving as an anchor for 17 years at CNN, Lemon was fired from the network in April 2023, just six into his new gig as a a host of “CNN This Morning.” The former host found himself surrounded in controversy after commenting that Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley “is not in her prime,” adding that a woman is “said to be in her prime in her 20s, 30s and maybe 40s.”
