Watch the Moment Elon Musk Abruptly Ends His Don Lemon Interview

Colby HallMar 18th, 2024, 11:02 am
 

The premiere episode of The Don Lemon Show — featuring Elon Musk — was released on Monday. The hourlong interview is a textbook example of how to question a controversial subject, one who came across as unable to handle being confronted with tough questions.

Musk, one of the wealthiest people in the world and one of the most powerful people in media, was ill-prepared to handle Don Lemon’s interrogation about hate speech and moderation on his platform. He struggled to fend off Lemon’s probing on Musk’s argument that DEI is a pernicious force and a host of other subjects. He grew visibly irritated with the relentless pace of the conversation.

When Lemon announced that Musk had canceled their partnership deal shortly after the interview wrapped, Musk’s many sycophants rushed to call Lemon out for being too tough on Musk. The New York Post rushed out the story, citing anonymous sources who claimed Lemon was ill-prepared and conducted a bad interview.

Having watched the one-hour and six-minute interrogation, Lemon comes off as professional, prepared, respectful, and fearless. The premiere episode of The Don Lemon Show bodes well; it’s a masterclass in confronting an interview subject on controversial and personal matters.

As the interview progresses, the viewer can see Musk getting more and more uncomfortable, testy even, insisting that he doesn’t have to talk to reporters (true!) and that he’s only doing the interview with Lemon because he was going to be on the X platform, suggesting he was expecting a softball interview that Lemon had not agreed to.

For his part, Lemon has since revealed that he’s never interviewed anyone quite as “sensitive and touchy.” He told People magazine that Musk was not “used to being held to account.”

“He’s not used to having to answer to anyone, especially someone like me who doesn’t share his worldview, who doesn’t look like him. You know what I’m saying?” he said. “When I questioned him about things that he put out on social media, posted or tweeted, that weren’t factual, it was very uncomfortable for him. To the point to where [he and his team] wanted to see the interview before it aired. Which was a big capital N no.”

The interview ends abruptly. Having become increasingly uncomfortable, at one point Musk abruptly gets up from his chair to leave. To be fair to Musk, he had given Lemon plenty of warning that time was expiring for the interview to wrap and that he had a room full of people waiting for him.

“I know you have to go, if you’ll just give me, I’ll do a rapid fire thing here,” Lemon notes. “Is there anything that you would change about anything that you’ve done in your life in the past or recently?”

“I’ve made vending mistakes over the years. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and fix ’em, but I don’t have a time machine,” Musk replied, before standing up to leave.

Watch the full interview above via X.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Colby Hall - Founding Editor

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.