Elon Musk Gets Testy with Don Lemon: ‘I Don’t Have to Answer Questions from Reporters’

Don Lemon returned to CNN’s airwaves for the first time since being fired from the network last year. Appearing on Wednesday’s OutFront hosted by Erin Burnett, Lemon shared clips of his interview with Elon Musk that has yet to air in its entirety.

The former CNN host said Musk terminated an agreement whereby Lemon created content on Musk’s X, formerly Twitter.

Musk fired back.

“His approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media’, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying,” Musk wrote on his platform.

Lemon spoke about an exchange he had with Musk in which the former CNN host noted that hate speech on X has increased since Musk bought it. Lemon also brought up Musk’s past endorsement of replacement theory – the idea that non-Whites are being imported into the country by Jews in order to dilute the political power of White people:

LEMON: Hate speech on the platform is up. Do you believe that X and you have some responsibility to moderate hate speech on the platform, that you wouldn’t have to answer these questions from reporters about the great replacement theory as it relates to–

MUSK: I don’t have to answer these questions.

LEMON: –great replacement theory as it relates to Jewish people. Do you think that–

MUSK: I don’t have to answer questions from reporters. Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform and you asked for it. Otherwise, there would not do– I would not do this interview.

LEMON: So you don’t think– do you think that you wouldn’t get in trouble or you wouldn’t be criticized for these things?

MUSK: I’m criticized constantly. I could care less.

After the clip ended, Lemon noted that several mass killers have invoked replacement theory and similar rhetoric to try to justify targeting people of color.

It doesn’t seem that he feels he has any responsibility with that because he seemed really averse to facts,” Lemon said. “He says, ‘Well, we don’t amplify them. But it doesn’t matter. They’re there. They’re in the public forum and people can find them.”

After endorsing endorsing replacement theory last year, Musk tried to backpedal after public backlash.

Watch above via Don Lemon and CNN.