Don Lemon’s Agent Shuts Down Allegations That Lemon Demanded A Free Tesla Cybertruck And More When Negotiating For His New Show: “Complete Utter Nonsense”

By Radhamely De Leon
Published March 18, 2024, 1:18 p.m. ET

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Don Lemon has been dominating the headlines since revealing Elon Musk terminated his partnership with X just hours after the two sat down for a tense interview that would launch Lemon’s new venture on Musk’s platform, The Don Lemon Show.

A recent report from New York Post alleges the former CNN host had a “wish list” of demands when he was negotiating his contract with Musk and X, among them a free Tesla Cybertruck, equity stake in X, as well as the power to approve any news-related policies the social media platform may be considering. According to the report, Lemon also allegedly demanded an additional $8 million salary on top of the $5 million payment he received up front.

Lemon’s agent Jay Sures outright denied the report, telling The Post, “This is absolute, complete utter nonsense without an iota of truth to it.”

It appears that The Don Lemon Show will continue with or without the partnership as Lemon still released the first episode earlier today — and we’ve got your guide on how to watch Lemon’s interview with Musk.

Before dropping episode one, the axed CNN host returned to his former network last week to exclusively share some tense moments from the interview that he said led to the end of their short-lived partnership.

At one point during their talk, Musk shut down Lemon’s line of questioning when he asked Musk about how his tech company moderates hate speech on X.

The clip showed Musk cutting Lemon off and stating, “Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform and you asked for it. Otherwise, I would not do this interview.”

Lemon said during his appearance on CNN that Musk “seemed really averse to facts” during their chat. He added that he felt that the idea of freedom of speech was just “rhetoric” to Musk because “it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s questions about him from people like me.”

Musk released his own statement on X about why he opted to terminate his partnership with Lemon, writing, “His approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media’, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying. And, instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don, so lacked authenticity.”

X said in a statement that Lemon is “welcome” to publish The Don Lemon Show on the social media platform “without censorship.”

“However, 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,” X said.

Musk echoed similarly writing in another post on X, “Even though I think Don is a pompous fool who spouts nonsense, he is still free to upload his show to 𝕏 and will receive advertising revenue.”