Former CNN star Don Lemon sues Elon Musk over cancelled X show

The lawsuit, filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco alleges X had agreed to pay Mr Lemon $1.5m (£881,000), along with a share of advertising revenue generated by his content.

It also claims Mr Musk and X used “false promises and representations” to help persuade Mr Lemon to agree to the partnership only to cancel it after he had spent thousands of dollars on creating the show.

However, the deal which would have seen The Don Lemon Show appearing on X collapsed abruptly in March after the recording of the first episode, which featured an interview with Mr Musk.

In a post on X shortly after the deal fell through, Mr Musk said Mr Lemon’s approach “was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media,’ which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying.”

During the interview, which was recorded at Tesla’s headquarters in Texas, Mr Lemon asked Mr Musk about his use of the drug ketamine, as well as the increase of hate speech on X.

Mr Lemon had been with CNN for 17 years when he was fired in April 2023.

The network made the decision after Mr Lemon made on-air comments about then Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley being past her prime.