The first episode of The Don Lemon Show premiered on Monday morning, showcasing a fiery interview with Elon Musk. The interview ultimately killed Don Lemon’s deal with X, in which the former CNN host promised to create exclusive content for the platform.
Lemon did not shy away from hot-button issues with Musk. The two broached topics including X’s content moderation, Musk’s opinions on DEI and woke politics, and even the billionaire’s alleged drug abuse. Lemon pushed back against many of Musk’s typical narratives he spreads on X, which made for a combative conversation that clearly made the Tesla CEO uncomfortable.
At one point in the interview, Musk even said, “Don… Choose your questions carefully, you’ve got 5 minutes left.” Musk then darted away to a “room full of people” waiting for him.
In the hours after this conversation took place, Musk notified Lemon’s representation that his “contract is canceled.” The contract was never signed to begin with, according to Semafor, even though X and Lemon had both promoted the deal extensively.
Lemon’s unsigned contract with X was leaked to The New York Post, which alleges the former CNN anchor requested a $US5 million advance on top of an $US8 million salary, equity in X, and a Tesla Cybertruck. Notably, the contract did not guarantee Lemon would provide exclusive episodes on X, but merely exclusive clips around interviews that would be posted elsewhere.
Here are the most heated moments from the interview that killed Don Lemon’s deal with X. Each of the following slides are linked to the moment from the interview being discussed.
Only Reason I’m Doing This is Because You’re on X
“Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship”
Lemon pushes back on DEI standards at Duke Medical School
I think this one requires some added context. The “evidence” Musk is citing for Duke Medical School lowering its standards in the name of DEI is a thread on X from Ben Shapiro. He posts videos from Duke Medical School where an administrator says Duke is “transitioning to a completely holistic review process” and “abandoning all sorts of metrics and screens.” Shapiro takes this to mean Duke is lowering standards and is just admitting medical school students based on DEI initiatives.
Musk responded to these claims saying, “people will die because of this.”
Duke Medical School is a predominantly white institution that has had no meaningful changes in its percentage of Black faculty members in recent years. From 2019 to 2023, Duke had no increase or decrease in its proportion of Black staffers. It’s remained steady at 15%. In the same time period, Duke Medical School’s percentage of Black students increased from 11% to 13%. White people are still the school’s largest demographic.