In the wake of Tucker Carlson’s viral announcement saying he’ll be bringing his top-rated show to Twitter, the social media’s CEO, Elon Musk, called on former CNN host Don Lemon to consider doing the same.
Musk, an industrialist who purchased the social media platform last year, commented Wednesday on Lemon’s weeks-old cryptic Twitter statement in which the ousted 57-year-old anchor announced that his agent informed him he was “terminated” by CNN.
“Have you considered doing your show on this platform? May be worth a try,” Musk pitched to Lemon, boasting the online service’s audience “is much bigger” than his former show.
Lemon, who most recently hosted CNN’s “This Morning,” was fired from the network the same day Carlson was axed from Fox News.
Have you considered doing your show on this platform? Maybe worth a try. Audience is much bigger.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2023
On April 26, just days after Lemon’s sudden termination, he was captured on video at an annual gala in New York City telling reporters that everyone appears to be “more worried about me than I am.”
That same evening, Lemon said during an interview on Extra TV that he’ll see what happens in the future and won’t “rush to another job, even if I want another job.”
“I’m going to spend my summer on the beach and on the boat … and then I’ll see what happens next, but I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can do that,” Lemon said.
Lemon has not responded to Musk’s request, neither did a representative for the TV personality immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk’s invitation to Lemon comes after reports recently emerged indicating Musk and Carlson came to a possible deal to bring a version of Carlson’s former Fox News primetime show to Twitter.
Carlson, the frontman of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” announced his future post-Fox plans in a video this week. It was the media personality’s first comment on his future plans since departing from the cable channel in late April.
“Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show to Twitter,” Carlson said. It’s “the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years,” he added.
In response, Musk wrote on Twitter that he had not signed a deal with Carlson, adding his platform is nonpartisan and Carlson would be “subject to the same rules [and] rewards” as any of the social media service’s content creators.
“On this platform, unlike the one-way street of broadcast, people are able to interact, critique, and refute whatever is said. And, of course, anything misleading will get [Community Notes],” Musk wrote, referring to the tech giant’s crowdsourced fact-checking system previously known as “Birdwatch.”
“Rewards means subscriptions and advertising revenue share (coming soon), which is a function of how many people subscribe and the advertising views associated with the content,” he added.
Musk also said that he would like more content creators from both aisles, “particularly from the left,” to launch a program on Twitter.
Twitter-Based Shows
Musk encouraging established media personalities to start their own show on Twitter comes as the platform recently began allowing users to apply to monetize their content—including long-form text and hours-long videos—through follower subscriptions in the latest change to the microblogging service.
The industrialist noted that creators would receive all the money earned from their posts for the first 12 months and Twitter won’t take a penny.
“Apply to offer your followers subscriptions of any material, from long-form text to hours-long video! Just tap on ‘Monetization’ in settings,” Musk wrote in an April 13 post on Twitter.
“You will receive whatever money we receive,” he added. “So that’s 70 percent for subscriptions on iOS and Android (they charge 30 percent) and ~92 percent on web (could be better, depending on payment processor).”
After the first year, the commission on iOS and Android fees will be reduced to 15 percent, according to Musk, who noted that Twitter will also add a “small amount on top of that, depending on volume.”
Google told Reuters in an email that it had already lowered the service fee for all subscriptions on Google Play to 15 percent from 30 percent in 2022.
According to Twitter’s official Creator Monetization Standards webpage, creators who want to monetize their content on Twitter must be age 18 or over, must have an account that has been active for at least three months, and is complete with full details, such as name, a profile picture, a header image, and bio, and must have secured their accounts with two-factor authentication.
They must also not be designated a state-affiliated media account, must be in “good standing with Twitter,” meaning no repeated violations of various Twitter policies, and must reside in a country in which Twitter’s monetization programs are available, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, among others.
In addition, users who want to monetize their content must be connected to a verified Stripe account, maintain 10,000 active followers or more, and have posted at least 25 tweets in the past 30 days.
Twitter also notes that Twitter users wanting to offer their subscriptions to content must be genuine and cannot be a parody, fan, or commentary account, something that Musk has taken a firm stance on in the past.
Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.
