It depends on what angle you take, but the question can be asked in different ways: will Elon Musk become the destination of fired cable stars? Or, will the billionaire serial entrepreneur be the big winner of the recent earthquake that shook two of the three major cable news networks?
On Apr. 24, Fox News and CNN caused an earthquake by announcing, to everyone's surprise, the dismissal of two household names. At Fox News, it was the departure of Tucker Carlson, whose success of the show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" had allowed the network to dominate the audiences of Prime Time for several years now.
Carlson was the locomotive of the ratings at the network. He was more than that. The anchor had become a hero in the Republican camp. Some would say that the king of cable-TV ratings was a rainmaker in the camp of the conservatives. Since Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the man who rose to prominence at Fox News by taking one of the most coveted primetime spots in 2016 and turned it into gold, has become one of the conservative leaders in the new culture war.
Sexist Remarks
The same day at CNN, whose headquarters in New York are not very far from those of Fox, another bomb went off. The network announced Don Lemon's departure, a move that came just over two months after he made sexist and ageist on-air comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
In February, Lemon, who was co-host of CNN This Morning, said that the 51-year-old Haley wasn't "in her prime" and suggested that a woman is "considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s."
Lemon later apologized.
CNN did not provide a reason for Lemon's departure but said in a tweet: "Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors."
"I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly," Lemon said on Twitter. "At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play."
Less than a month later, Carlson already seems on the verge of making his comeback. He has just announced that he will host a show on Twitter, the social network acquired for $44 billion dollars by Musk on Oct. 27. The billionaire is revamping the platform and one of his ambitions is to find sources of income other than advertising. He wants to attract influencers and creators to create content, which would encourage users to subscribe. The authors will receive a large share of the subscription revenues.
'Have you Considered Doing Your Show on This Platform?'
"Starting soon, we'll be bringing a new version of the show we've been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter," Carlson announced on May 9. "We bring some other things too, which we'll tell you about."
Carlson's arrival could accelerate Musk's efforts and give Twitter a big boost.
But aware that some of the influencers and users could be tempted not to come or to leave the platform because of Carlson's controversial personality, Musk wants to be able to retain them by welcoming a big liberal influencer at the same time. He has just made an offer directly to Lemon. He invites him to create a show on Twitter. The offer was made directly to the former CNN star on Twitter.
"Have you considered doing your show on this platform?" the billionaire asked Lemon on May 10. "Maybe worth a try. Audience is much bigger."
Lemon has not responded at last check.
Interestingly, Musk wants to entice Lemon to produce content for Twitter and on Twitter. Last November, the billionaire posted an image of Lemon alongside a caption reading "Elon Musk could threaten free speech on Twitter by allowing people to speak freely.” The quote was not coming from Lemon as CNN said at the time. It was a way for the Techno King to mock CNN.
