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.
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.”
“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.
“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.
“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.
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.
“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.”
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.