Don Lemon on the End of His X Partnership

25:36You've been a team player, blah, blah, blah. And I think that I'm trying to get Elon to understand. And quite frankly, I said, I think that he was just uncomfortable in the moment. and what will actually turn out in the interview, he's going to look better than he thought, right? Because this wasn't a gotcha interview. This was just a Q &A. I was just having a conversation with him, questions and answers. And I think just, you know, again, just because he was so uncomfortable for some reason for my mere presence and questions, I just think that was the discomfort. When you see the interview, there are nuggets in there.

26:16He does make news in there. I don't attack him. and there are no gotcha questions. I think people are going to walk away from this interview and say, they're going to say, what did he fire? Well, he didn't fire me because I didn't work for him. But why did he cancel the contract? I think people are going to, I think even his own people will wonder what the hell he's thinking. They will say nothing to him. They will say nothing to him. So if he called you and said, oh God, I really flew off the handle, would you come back? What would you say to him? I would say, pay me what you owe me. And it was great.

26:49I really enjoyed this learning experience. And the best of luck to you and everyone at your organization. What's your advice for the next person who wants to do business with them? Because, you know, he didn't pay out the Twitter executives. He hasn't paid out regular employees. I've heard from dozens of them. They're in severance hell with this guy. Doesn't pay rents. I mean, he's like Trump times six in this regard of paying bills. What advice would you have for the next person who wants to do one? Because this is one of Linda Yaccherino's big thing is we're going to make this immediate. Now she was touting video when she knew full well what was going on here.

27:28Well, if you read the New York Times piece, advertisers were still trying to advertise around my show. They were using my show. What would I do? And by the way, I'll answer your question. there were people who were asking me a talent in this business, a number of people, oh my God, your deal with that sounds very interesting. What do I do? How do I do this? You know, this is the future. I think what you're doing is really smart, right? And so I told them to call my agent, call Oren Rosenbaum, right? Who's a digital guru at UTA. He's a podcast. Yeah, and have him work that out. And there were a number of people who reached out to me and a number of people who reached out to my representatives because of that.

28:13And if those people want to go to X, I'm sure they would. But I was in a position to actually bring normal journalists to them. I shouldn't say normal, more centrist journalists to them and not mostly right-wing people. Or I shouldn't say just journalists, talent. And also advertisers. There were advertisers who said, oh my God, I'm so excited about what you're doing. I'm so excited about this new project. We want to support you. But X, eh. So in the end with the advertisers, they weren't really helping. And as you told me, do this on your own. Invest and bet on yourself. Advertisers were more excited about working with me than they were about working with X.

28:56And there were some who were coming to the platform. I don't know if they'll still do it. They may still do it because of me. And we'll see how that plays out now. But I would say to them, go into it with your eyes open. I cannot tell you what to do. You told me not to do it. I did it and I found out. And I wouldn't even say the hard way. I actually enjoyed the experience. No. All right. Okay. But just so you know, you're not going to get paid. I told you get paid up front, didn't I? No, he'll get paid just after a judge decides he's getting paid. Yeah, that's true. That could be. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

29:28Also, listen, but I think there was an even sort of trade-off. Well, I shouldn't say that. I don't know that to be true. But alluding to what Scott said, the promotion from this has been, I don't really know how you put a dollar amount on that. But if Elon had just not said anything and let the interview run, it would be over two days after. Yeah. You got musked. You got musked. Well, just an observation and a question. I always like to try and glean a learning from our guests or younger people. And that is a lot of times when you get laid off or fired, it has nothing to do with you and to forgive yourself and just nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems.

30:15And Don, I can just hear in your voice, you're fine. I get the sense you're sleeping just fine. The question I have is, so you're a, you're, you were and still are a kind of a cable news star. Cable news is in decline. The audience is shrinking. There's more talent than there is audience on cable news right now. And you've left and you're trying to shape kind of a new strategy, different distribution channels, maybe a new positioning for your show. Can you sort of walk us through, and it's probably a work in progress. Can you walk us through your strategy for how you're going to try and maintain relevance, maintain, you know, an income stream and sort of adapt to this new world.

30:56What's your, what's your thinking and your strategy here around the show and how you kind of move forward? Well, number one, I'm in a position where I can, at least for a couple of years, I can try things, right? I can experiment and I intend to do that. Do I think that my relevance or my income or whatever it is, that it's going to be the same as when it was on CNN? No. I mean, I'm not working for CNN. And if I went to a different network, my relevance and my income would be different. And so I don't expect that. I think people start media companies or they start streaming and they think they're going to be the same as they were on broadcast media or cable media.

31:37No, I'm not that naive. I'm a 58-year-old man, and I know, and I'm very realistic about life. Do I think I have another chapter? Absolutely. Absolutely. And look, I think I'm still relevant. I think I'm more relevant than people who are on cable news right now. Just because I am open and willing to try new things, and I am not afraid of anything. I'm not afraid of Elon Musk. I wasn't afraid of anyone that I've ever worked with, any interview subject, the former president of the United States, I'm not. And so I believe with the, you have to have the right attitude about life. If you have a positive attitude about life, you try things, you don't let perfect be the enemy of the good, then you will go on and be successful.

32:25What I, out of this, what I said, you know, people wondered like, why hasn't Don announced anything? Why hasn't he, you know, announced a job? Why hasn't he found a job? None of that was true. People don't understand what contracts mean in this business. You have non-competes, you have, you know, there are time limits that you can do. You have to wait a certain amount of time before you can even look for a job, all of those things. There are certain things about direct competitors where you can't go on, you know, people who are your direct competitors. And so I wanna continue to be able to afford the lifestyle that I have.

33:03And so those things aren't even in the realm possibility to me. What I'm doing now, it just happens to be where the future of this industry is going. It's going to this, and I'm holding up a cell phone right now, not this giant television that is behind me, not the giant movie screen. So whatever I'm going to do, what I'm going to do next is lean into that, to the digital part of this, to the small screen part of this. And Scott, you talk about that as well. So what I'm going to do is take whatever I can, invest in my business. I'm going to be lean and mean, and I'm going to spend the money up top to get it running, to look the best that it can.

33:50And once I figure out how to do this thing, then I'm going to slim it down even more so that I am running this entire business, not doing everything for myself, but that I have a few of the right people around me and do it the way that it should be done. Let me tell you what I've learned. If you're watching something on a small screen, people don't care about that giant studio around you with the million lights that cost five,$10 million and all of those swoosh and whatever. They just want the information. And they don't care if you have 50 producers or 10 writers. They want what they want from you.

34:33And that is quality and that is information. And they want someone who's going to be authentic. And so that's where this is going. This isn't the way of the, I look at this, it's akin to the studio system from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and maybe even the 60s in Hollywood. Those days are gone. And so people have to become their own brands. You have to become your own studio and your own entrepreneur. The best advice that I got was from Kara Swisher. and it clicked in my head in that moment. I remember I was standing in my kitchen in Sag Harbor. You said, you're no longer a talent. You're an entrepreneur.

35:11And the minute you said that, I was like, fuck yeah, she's right. I'm an entrepreneur. I need to learn how to be a businessman. I had never had to do that because everyone was always taking care of me. They coddle you, Don. Now it's Don 2.0, lean and mean. I know, I know. Just real quick. And so, no, I was never mean, But so now I'm an entrepreneur and I have to learn how to be an entrepreneur. And with that, I, you know, I tell people, I don't know this part of the business. Help me out. Okay. Help me understand this. I want to sign every check. I want to see every invoice. Like, give it to me.

35:43I want to, I want to learn how to do it. And so that's where I am now. And guess what? It's hard, but I love it. And I'm learning. And you know what? I am going to be successful. So I don't know if I answered your question, but that's what I'm doing. There you go. Don Lemon. And I have to say, Don Lemon, you've done well for getting into beefs with people. You got that contract paid out. You're going to probably get this one. Don Lemon does firing well or whatever. It's not firing. You know what I mean? Don Lemon, thank you. And people can check out the premiere of the Don Lemon Show, which I'm going to be on, on March 18th on X.

36:16Yes, it will still be posted there as well as YouTube or wherever you get your videos. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Delemon. Delemon. So Scott, I love you, buddy. Let's get together. I know we tried. It didn't happen. Kara, you are my sister. I'm going to get a little emotional. I love you so much. Thank you. If I could only be you when I grow up, I'd be happy. You can't. You just can't. Still time. She's much older than you, Dawn. Anyway, Dawn, thank you. Thank you, guys. Good luck. I love you, guys. And let us know if Elon calls. If you start hugging, he hugs it out, bitch. Should I call him now?

36:51No. No. Just a quick update before we go to break. We reached out to X to get their reaction to Don's comments about his agreement with the platform. They referred us to an X post from Elon Musk on March 13th. It reads, Lemon Emoji is welcome to monetize on this platform just like everyone else. What we aren't going to do is guarantee minimum payments to him as he was demanding, which would be going beyond everyone else. Unfortunately, all Lemon Emoji wants to do is rehash the dying CNN business model, quote, but on social media, which will do even worse here than it did on cable TV. All right.

37:32That's the news from Elon Musk. I also will note he did text the representatives for Don Lemon a contract canceled. So he also thinks there was a contract. You all figure it out. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the future of TikTok after the passage of that bill in the House this week.

37:56There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why in 2025 are late night TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel's show still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now.

38:45That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

38:54Okay, Scott, we're back. We're just going to deal with one big story this week. A bill requiring TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app within 180 days or risk having it banned in the U.S. has passed through the House. It's on its way to the Senate, where it's going to slow considerably. But the legislation had significant amount of bipartisan support in the House, passing with a sweeping margin of 352 to 65. Its future, again, in the Senate is uncertain. Rand Paul is against it. It's not clear what Chuck Schumer's doing. He's going to put it up. Very short time span. But President Biden said he would sign it if it makes it to his desk.

39:26We knew the bill would pass. We said that at South by Southwest. Senate Majority Leader, again, Chuck Schumer hasn't committed. Paul is going to call the bill a draconian measure that stifles free expression. TikTok said in a statement it hopes that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy and the 170 million Americans who use our service. It's a couple things. Again, it may not at all pass, but there's all, you know, they've been trying to enlist, as you said, you noted your own team to call in. That sort of backfired, I think, here.

40:00And a lot of people are, half the people are saying national security risk, half the people are saying free speech. It should be able to continue. Any thoughts on the passing? And then I have one more question about it. I think, I mean, I'm really hoping for it. I don't think America has, I think that we elect people to think long term and prevent a tragedy of the commons and protect our borders. And one of our Achilles heel as Americans is we're hugely optimistic, which is our superpower. But the downside of that is that Americans are easier to fool than convinced we've been fooled. And the fact that we have let the CCP or a CCP-influenced entity implant a neural jack of our youth under the age of 25 for several hours a day, that's just a risk we shouldn't tolerate.

40:48So I think for the first time in a long time, we're going to see our elected leaders, quite frankly, do their job as it relates to social media. And unfortunately, there's some basis in what I'll call jingoism or just anti-Chinese sentiment. I don't care. But also, the only other observation I would make here is that Prime Minister Sunak essentially said he's going to move forward legislation to not allow a Gulf-backed entity by a very powerful newspaper there. This is Jeff Zucker's thing, Jeff Zucker and is it Abu Dhabi? Abu Dhabi. And to be honest, I think America still, California sort of leads the way for America.

41:25It always has. And America leads the way for the world. And I got to believe that the Prime Minister's cabinet looked at the fact that we're pushing back on a foreign entity controlling our media and said, you know, they're right. And we can't have the same thing here. As much as I love Jeff Zucker and I want him to be successful and he will, there's something uncomfortable about foreign entities that maybe don't share our concerns. having that kind of influence. Well, it's interesting. There has been a little bit of pushback because, you know, there are foreign enemies that own newspapers and things like that or different things.

41:55It's in broadcast that it's been very... But not of his dominance. ...that's loosened up. Yeah, but I have to say, this is broadcast. I'm sorry. This is a version of broadcast and that's what it is. And so we've always been very particular around broadcast, less so around newspaper. Well, Rupert Murdoch had to become an American citizen and sell off. He did. I mean, this isn't new. Yeah. This isn't... And anyway, I'm really hopeful about this. And also, I think it's going to be, words matter. We really screwed up calling it a ban. They should have just called it a regulation. Yeah, it's regulation.

42:27It'll be interesting. I think you're right. I think there's a couple of Congress, I have to say, they haven't been too jingoistic. There was a Congress person that was on threads that said who did a great explanation of why she voted for it. She's like, it's a national security issue. Even if they didn't do it, they could. Like, don't be silly. And it was interesting. I thought she didn't. And let me just say, the other thing is, it's not going away, kids. It's not going away. This will not be going away. You're going to have your TikTok. I talked to some people. I was like, stop saying it's going away.

42:56It's not going away. It's just not. It's simply not. Now, whether the Chinese government will make a move, I don't think they have a move. And you both of us don't. But there are a lot of moves. Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin just told CNBC a little while ago that he's building an investor group to acquire a network. Bobby Kotick's name has been raised. There's all kinds of rich people trying to... No shortage of money. So some analysts estimate the U.S. portion of TikTok could be worth more than$50 billion. One of those investors is Jeff Yast in ByteDance. Obviously, this is why President Trump shifted his stance on this, because he used to be...

43:30He's the one that really brought this up in the first place. Also, Kellyanne Conway, one of his advisors, seems to be working against these bills. and you know also there's all and then oracle it's an oracle's interest larry ellison's a supporter of him to keep project texas going which is to clean up keep it in chinese hands and and have a separate thing it's a billion dollar contract so it's in president trump is so mobbed up here in terms of money it's kind of crazy um but uh what what do you think of the deals let give me a very i don't i think whatever china does it doesn't matter they don't have They don't have a say anymore.

44:07Well, the thing that for me literally crystallized and brought into sharp relief the problem, my 13-year-old son got a message from TikTok saying, stop the TikTok ban. Are you down with the GRU and Putin being able to directly reach out to our children and get them to take political action? Is that, even if you put it all aside, the go-to here is trade symmetry. And that's actually the kind of the crux of the bill that won't run or foul First Amendment. We should allow BYD, electric car company from China, into our country because they allow Tesla into theirs. We should allow CNN because they allow the North Face into China.

44:50They would never allow an American media company in. Their version of TikTok is science experiments, astronauts, pianists. They get the spinach version. They ship us the opium version. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. What will China do? Someone was like, what will China do? I'm like, well, you know, they'll kick our social media sites out of their, oh, wait, we're not in our country. Yeah, that happened 10 years ago. What? Like, what are they going to go for Apple? They're not going to do that. Anyway, one of the things, though, I have to say, Alex Damos, who is a great, smart guy, he did make a good point here on Threads.

45:20He goes, that's why it's incredibly important to get this TikTok bill right. The focus on speech instead of privacy, the specific naming of ByteDance when neutral criteria would clearly suffice, and the pulling in of American tech companies via the App Store provisions are all serious weak points. A federal privacy bill that protects users' data and also controls data flow to our adversaries would be more defensible and comprehensible. I think he's kind of right there. And he said there are thousands of Chinese companies to be concerned about, and I hope the Senate takes the House's initial offer and strengthens this bill.

45:49Also, it's been done before with Grindr. We've done this. We've done it with other companies many times before. So this is not unprecedented for our government to do this. In any case, we'll see where it goes. Should you and I put together a plan and buy it? What do you think? Consortium? Can we do it with Don Le Mans? There's going to be, oh my gosh. With Dee Le Mans. Once it becomes, I can't imagine how many people with deep pockets. First off, Sequoia and General Atlantic Partners are already in there. there's going to be absolutely no shortage of people willing to put together a consortium.

46:23There's going to be - So you don't think we can? Yeah, okay. There's going to be a bidding war for this. This is - I bet Musk comes in here speaking of people. He'll probably want to - I mean, that just means there's fame involved. He comes into everything. So you're not going to lose your TikTok. You're not going to lose your TikTok. Yeah, Microsoft should go in here. That's what I think. Well, there's a bunch. I mean, there'll be people big and small. We'll see. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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47:56Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, my prediction is very straightforward. You can buy, even though ByteDance is a private firm, you can buy shares of it in the private market because there are now these secondary markets that have emerged. and what they do is when employees want to get some liquidity because companies are waiting longer and longer to go public they can sell their shares uh to in the open market or on a in the secondary market and the the valuation of byt dance right now in the secondary market i believe is somewhere between 220 and 250 billion uh the ban is going to take the value send the value of ByteDance shares soaring.

48:34And this is why. ByteDance, or TikTok specifically, is the most ascendant social media platform of the last 10 years. It's flattening. Usage is flattening, just so you know. But go ahead. Oh, globally, TikTok, 1.7 billion people. And just as a user, it's extraordinary. Its revenues are skyrocketing. I mean, it might be flattening from a usage standpoint because almost everybody's on it in the U.S. But my point is, if you compare it on any metric to the valuation that its best analog meta gets, it's extraordinarily cheap. Now, why is it cheap? Because of the cloud of overhang of uncertainty around a possible ban.

49:13Once that is removed, once it is quote unquote banned slash regulated, and they figure out an accommodation with the U.S., which they will, you're going to see the shares and the value of ByteDance skyrocket. So my prediction is the following. Distinct of all the clutching of our pearls, you are about to see the value of ByteDance increase dramatically. All right. That's a good prediction. That's an excellent prediction. I think you're 100 % right. Okay. Before we go, we have to say congratulations to us. We won the Best News Podcast at the iHeart Podcast Awards. Scott accepted it and showed off his guns.

49:48I don't know what that picture was about. How was that? Was that a great moment for you? You know, Carrie, you know what was really just so impressive about it was... Seeing me so much, but go ahead. That, but we beat The Daily and we beat Pod Save America. Take that, Michael Barbaro! Who else did we beat? The Pod Save guys. I was shocked because, quite frankly, I think The Daily is outstanding. I think they do a fantastic job. Yeah, we're outstanding. But that was, look, it was really rewarding. Now, granted, I had literally three hours later done ketamine therapy, so I was especially grateful.

50:25Oh, my God. We didn't discuss it. You have to talk about it very briefly. I'm sorry. We have to take more time here for a second. Maybe we should wait till. I don't know if there's a way to briefly describe it, so maybe we should do it on another show. Okay. Next show, everybody. I have to say, everywhere I stop, people have asked me about your ketamine therapy, because we're going to put it front and center of our next show. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

50:54Okay, Scott, that's the show. The next one will be all about Scott. We'll be back on Tuesday, as I said, with more Pivot. Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Jertod engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mil Saverio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

51:25Kids, don't worry. Trust me, Uncle Scott is guaranteeing, is promising you, you're not going to lose your TikTok.