Elon Musk has broken his silence on the bombshell news that Tucker Carlson will relaunch his hit show on Twitter.
Musk said he did not sign a deal with Carlson, who will remain a free agent.
He noted that Carlson will be paid like everyone else on Twitter, through subscriptions and via advertising revenue share.
One of Musk’s goals since taking over Twitter was to attract content creators who publish directly to the platform.
Doing so would allow content creators to earn money from Twitter in the same way they do on rivals such as Spotify and YouTube.
That means Tucker Carlson has some serious cojones because Rupert Murdoch and Fox News will not pay him his $20 million a year.
Carlson is still tied to his contract at Fox which doesn’t expire until January 2025.
However, Fox is obviously reluctant to let Carlson, the network’s former top-rated host, move to a rival and take his audience with him, especially during the 2024 election.
Theoretically, Carlson could just sit back and do nothing for the next year and a half and still take a huge paycheck.
So he is taking a massive risk by walking on his contract and going it alone.
Tucker did put Fox News on notice before he made his announcement about his Twitter show.
Carlson’s legal team is asking for documents from the network’s lawyers and accusing Fox of fraud, as Slay News reported earlier.
Fox News will have to tread carefully because the backlash will be severe if they are seen as trying to silence Tucker.
After Carlson dropped his bombshell announcement on Twitter, Musk said:
“On this platform, unlike the one-way street of broadcast, people are able to interact, critique and refute whatever is said.
“And, of course, anything misleading will get @CommunityNotes.
“I also want to be clear that we have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever.
“Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators.
“Rewards means subscriptions and advertising revenue share (coming soon), which is a function of how many people subscribe and the advertising views associated with the content.
“I hope that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform.”
On this platform, unlike the one-way street of broadcast, people are able to interact, critique and refute whatever is said.
And, of course, anything misleading will get @CommunityNotes.
I also want to be clear that we have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is… https://t.co/0TMjuYnKUp
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023
A podcaster took to Twitter to comment on the platform becoming an active content provider, saying:
“Hot take:@Twitter can become the world’s number-one podcast platform in LESS than 90 days.
“Posting the @CDG_Podcast directly on Twitter grew my active listeners by *400%* in 1 week.
“Why? Because people can listen without going to another platform.
“Here are 5 critical upgrades that are still needed:
— Picture-in-picture
— Speed up/down
— 10-second rewind/forward
— Ability to listen with the phone closed
— Add a “Podcasts” tab on the Profile page next to Tweets and Replies (for discoverability)
“Insane opportunity.”
Musk said: “Yup.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023
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