Elon Musk wants Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon for Twitter shows

June 9, 2023

in Business

Reading Time: 10 mins read

Twitter boss Elon Musk wants to lure liberal TV hosts like fired CNN anchor Don Lemon or MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to his platform to balance out conservative views voiced by Tucker Carlson.

“It’d be great to have @maddow, @donlemon & others on the left put their shows on this platform,” Musk wrote Thursday while retweeting the second installment of Carlson show.

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“You will receive our full support. The digital town square is for all,” Musk added in the tweet.

It’s not the first time Musk has made a plea to Lemon.

“Have you considered doing your show on this platform? Maybe worth a try. Audience is much bigger,” Musk said in a May 10 tweet, which was posted in response to Lemon’s fiery post announcing his exit from the embattled network.

Twitter boasts about 450 million active monthly users, while “CNN This Morning” — which Lemon co-anchored alongside Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins — averaged a dismal 360,000 viewers just before he was booted.

Elon Musk called on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and axed CNN anchor Don Lemon to start their own show on Twitter in an effort to get leftist voices on the platform.

Twitter/Elon Musk

Lemon co-anchored "CNN This Morning," which averaged dismal ratings, before he was fired over a series of controversies that ended when he referred to 51-year-old GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley as not "in her prime." — Lemon co-anchored “CNN This Morning,” which averaged dismal ratings, before he was fired over a series of controversies that ended when he referred to 51-year-old GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley as not “in her prime.”

Tucker Carlson released episodes 1 and 2 of "Tucker on Twitter," and has raked in hundreds of millions of views. — Tucker Carlson released episodes 1 and 2 of “Tucker on Twitter,” and has raked in hundreds of millions of views.

"The Rachel Maddow Show" is MSNBC's No. 1-rated program, and consistently clocks more than 200,000 viewers in the coveted 25-to-54 demo. — “The Rachel Maddow Show” is MSNBC’s No. 1-rated program, and consistently clocks more than 200,000 viewers in the coveted 25-to-54 demo.

Meanwhile, Maddow’s namesake weekly show, “The Rachel Maddow Show,” is MSNBC’s No. 1 program, consistently clocking upwards of 200,000 viewers just in the coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic, according to USTVDB figures.

For the past nine consecutive Mondays, Maddow’s audience soared above 2 million, the outlet reported.

The Post reached out to representatives for Maddow and Lemon for comment.

Recruiting voices on both sides of the political aisle has seemed to be a personal mission for Musk, who has hosted Twitter Spaces events with Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the span of two weeks.

The billionaire has frequently touted Twitter as “a place where all voices are heard and where there’s the kind of dynamic interaction that you don’t really see anywhere else.”

However, the strategy hasn’t seemed to be working for the platform’s finances. Ad revenue has plummeted 59% since Musk took over last October, with advertisers citing worries the app could become chaotic under the outspoken mogul.

For the five weeks between April 1 and early May, Twitter’s ad revenue fell $88 million compared to the year prior, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The cash-strapped social media site has also frequently fallen short of its sales projections, sometimes by up to 30%, and the figures aren’t predicted to improve anytime soon, the documents revealed.

In an effort to save money, Musk fired half of the company’s workforce late last year, claiming the move put Twitter on track to save $700 million in 2023.

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