Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was abruptly fired shortly after the settlement of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against the network, announced on Tuesday that he would be launching his show again — this time hosted directly on Twitter itself.
But there's one person who doesn't seem to have been in on this plan, per Variety: Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
"'Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,' Carlson said in a video shared Tuesday on the platform. 'Free speech is the main right you have. Without it, you have no others,'" reported Todd Spangler. However, "According to Musk, Twitter does not have a deal with Carlson. '[W]e have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators,' Musk tweeted Tuesday."
Regardless of whether or not Musk pays him for his work, if Carlson does go through with the new Twitter show, he stands to lose $25 million from his Fox News contract, which is still paying him out despite his termination under the terms of their original agreement. The contract includes a noncompete agreement that requires him to forfeit the rest of the payout.
As Variety noted, Carlson appears to be setting the stage to challenge that provision in court.
"Prior to Carlson’s announcement of the forthcoming Twitter show, a lawyer for the former Fox News host sent a letter to the cable network accusing Fox News of 'fraud and breach of contract,' Axios reported. That is presumably intended to set the stage for Carlson to claim he’s not bound by the noncompete provision of his contract with Fox News," said the report. "The letter from Carlson’s lawyer to Fox News claimed that the network’s employees including 'Rupert Murdoch himself' broke promises to Carlson 'intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth,' per the Axios report. The letter also claimed Fox News broke its promises not to settle with Dominion 'in a way which would indicate wrongdoing' on the part of Carlson and to not to use Carlson’s private messages 'to take any adverse employment action against him,' according to the Axios report."
Carlson was purportedly fired over a number of communications of his that were revealed to Fox executives during the Dominion lawsuit's discovery process, including racist comments about the beating of an anti-fascist demonstrator and his use of the C-word to attack multiple Fox executives. However, some commentators have suggested this is just an excuse, and Carlson was really fired as a crisis management stunt to distract from the humiliation of settling the Dominion case.
