Lemon - Musk Conflict and Lawsuit: Lemon Knowingly Played With Fire
What are the odds the plaintiff receives legal support and a significant settlement or judgment?
Neither Elon Musk or Don Lemon are universally respected or liked. That can make looking at their conflict objectively challenging for their critics. Let’s try to do so.
First, let’s briefly look at the story between the two men.
Headline on Gizmodo: Don Lemon Sues Elon Musk Over His Cancelled X Show
The former news anchor has accused Musk and X executives of misleading him about the nature of their business arrangement.
Lemon claims that Musk ended Lemon’s talk show on X (formerly Twitter) after what the platform’s owner determined was an unfair, contentious interview with him.
This dispute has become a conflict and now, a lawsuit, reports Lucas Ropek.
“Lemon has sued both Musk and X and claims that he was tricked into a business arrangement with the platform under ‘false pretenses,’” Ropek writes.
“The lawsuit accuses X executives and Musk of providing Lemon with ‘false promises and representations,’ noting that while Lemon was told he would be entering into a profitable, long-lasting business relationship, the real ‘purpose’ of the partnership was to temporarily use Lemon’s name, likeness, reputation, and identity to rehabilitate Defendants reputation and draw in advertisers to the X platform.’ The suit notes the drastic downturn in advertising revenue that X suffered just prior to the deal,” Ropek reports.
Lemon claims that he was promised “full authority and control over the work he produced even if disliked by Defendants.”
Musk texted Lemon’s attorney to say the “contract is cancelled” one day after the Lemon interviewed his boss, the lawsuit claims.
Lemon, understandably was disillusioned.
“Apparently, free speech absolutism doesn’t apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me,” he lamented in a video posted to X.
To the money:
“The lawsuit claims X had offered to pay Lemon $1.5 million a year. Additionally, Lemon would have been entitled to ‘60 percent of the gross advertising revenue that X received for programmatic advertising’ generated by his content,” Ropek reports.
Lemon’s lawsuit is communicating that X leadership “failed to compensate him, citing to false pretenses for their breach of the partnership agreement.”
His attorney punched hard at Musk and his company.
"You don’t have to be a genius to see the fraud, negligence, and reputational damage here,” Carney Shegerian said.
“Don is an accomplished and hard-hitting journalist who’s committed to defending his good name and holding X’s executives accountable. We look forward to our day in court,” Shegerian added, as reported by Greg Grasiozi at The Independent.
Is this a case of offending the boss, the hand that feeds you and the resulting sour grapes for being punished? Is it more about poor ethics and a breach of contract on the part of Musk and X? Or is it a mix of Lemon blindsiding and ambushing Musk and him and X reactively doing predictably, employer-like things?
If we set aside our biases about Musk or Lemon, whichever one we would emotionally want to side with, we might more clearly see that both men contributed to this fight. That doesn’t mean they are both responsible for their current reality. One person can be much more at fault.
As for which one has the legal upper-hand — not to be confused with morality — that’s a different question that will be examined in a moment.
Musk reportedly gave Lemon the right to conduct his show as he saw fit, even if Musk disagreed. That may prove important legally for Lemon’s case and could work strongly in his favor with the lawsuit.
However, it should not surprise anyone that any employer would feel resentful and vengeful if someone they were paying put them in a position where they could extend trust and end up being publicly embarrassed, mocked and shamed.
Lemon could spin his intent as giving Musk a chance to explain himself yet that unlikely was his mission. Lemon was going for the jugular. That Musk wouldn’t respect or tolerate it is no shock. That Lemon immediately forfeited trust is basic 1-1 = 0 math.
Lemon doesn’t have to respect or like Musk. He also didn’t have to communicate in a manner that left Musk feeling duped for Lemon’s selfish ambition, leading to more public ridicule for his employer.
If Lemon truly wanted to have a healthy, ongoing, business relationship, his decision-analysis, strategy and actions would have revealed such. As it were, they were counterproductive to his claims.
Some will argue that what else did Musk think was going to happen if Lemon, a journalist, was going to interview him: Softball questions? That is reasonable to ask.
Musk assumed, falsely he learned, that Lemon would be appreciative of the platform-and-financial opportunity and would respect him for it. That was an error in judgment.
Legally, who knows how this plays out. Does Lemon have the upper hand? How does the “no signed contract,” as is reported, help or hurt each man’s case?
What is known is that Lemon did his reputation a disservice. Musk didn’t do that. As for Musk, this conflict is the latest in an irregular stream of them. That speaks loudly.
Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence: Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically and responsibly protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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