Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), abruptly terminated a deal to exclusively host former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s new talk show. It happened hours after the two of them filmed an interview. Lemon said Musk texted him: “Contract terminated.”

“We had a good conversation. Clearly, he felt differently. His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me,” Lemon said.

About the interview for the debut episode of The Don Lemon Show (was scheduled for March 18), there were “no restrictions on the interview that he willingly agreed to” and his “questions were respectful and wide-ranging, covering everything from SpaceX to the presidential election”.

Musk responded on X: “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. All this said, Lemon/Zucker are, of course, welcome to build their viewership on this platform along with everyone else.”

Musk champions himself as an advocate of free speech and when he took over Twitter, he reinstated accounts that had been permanently suspended under prior management, including that of former US president Donald Trump. But he wasn’t kind towards what the sacked employees of X had to say.

In his quest to attract talent, Musk is trying to get influencers such as the popular YouTuber Mr Beast to upload their material. He announced last week that the company will launch a long-form video streaming app that will be available on smart televisions.