Fox News Accuses Tucker Carlson of Breaching Contract With Twitter Show

Fox News accused its former host Tucker Carlson of breaching his contract with a new show on Twitter. The network claimed in a letter that Carlson’s new show, the first episode of which dropped on Tuesday, is a violation of his contract, setting up a potential legal battle between the cable news giant and one the biggest voices in conservative media.

The letter, which was first reported by Axios and confirmed by Mediaite, noted that Carlson’s contract stated that his “services shall be completely exclusive to Fox” and that he is “prohibited” from “rendering services of any type whatsoever” either online or on another digital platform.

Fox ousted Carlson, who hosted the highly-rated 8 p.m. hour of the network, in April just days after the network reached a bombshell $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the airing of 2020 election lies.

Fox did not provide a reason for why it abruptly dumped its most popular star, but sources said Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch ultimately decided Carlson had become — for a few reasons — too much of a liability for the network. Even before the network settled with Dominion, Carlson’s behavior had emerged as a problem for Fox News, Mediaite reported at the time.

Carlson hired high-powered attorney Bryan Freedman to negotiate his exit from Fox. He is currently hamstrung by a noncompete in his contract, which runs until January 2025. Fox reportedly offered him $25 million to serve out the rest of his contract in silence, an offer he rejected. His lawyers have since declared war on Fox, accusing the network of fraud and breach of contract in an attempt to escape the terms of his agreement.

On Tuesday, Carlson dropped the first episode of his new show on Elon Musk’s social media platform, called Tucker on Twitter. The show took the format of a 10-minute monologue, delivered from a home studio, with Carlson controlling the teleprompter. His monologue was not unlike the screeds he used to deliver nightly on his Fox News show. At one point, he described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, as “a persecutor of Christians” as well as “shifty, dead-eyed” and “sweaty and ratlike.”

In a statement to Axios, Freedman responded to Fox’s legal threat: “Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events.”

Carlson did not respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.