It had to play like this eventually.
Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who was abruptly fired on Apr. 24 to everyone's surprise, will team up with Elon Musk for his big comeback.
The king of cable-TV ratings was fired just a few days after Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox News hosts had wrongfully accused the company of stealing the victory in the 2020 presidential election from then-President Donald Trump. The software company sued the network for spreading false accusations that it was at the center of a vast conspiracy to cheat Trump of his second presidency.
"FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways," the network said in a statement on Apr. 24, without providing the reason for the breakup. "We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."
Twitter Is the Place for Free Speech: Carlson
It appears that the discovery process in the Dominion Defamation case revealed messages from Carlson in which he insulted his colleagues and managers at Fox News. One of the texts, a racist message sent to his producer, is particularly damaging.
"A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington," Carlson wrote on Jan. 7, 2021. "A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least."
He continued: "Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it."
Carlson has not addressed his firing.
In his second video posted on Twitter since his dismissal, he announces that he will host a show on the platform, which has belonged to Elon Musk since Oct. 27. The billionaire, who describes himself as a "free speech absolutist," had paid $44 billion to take control and make it a bastion of free speech, that is, a place where everything can be said as long as it does not violate the law.
"As of tonight, there aren't many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, Twitter where we are now," Carlson said in a 3-minute video posted on the platform on May 9. "Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops. Twitter is not a partisan site, everybody's allowed here, and we think that's a good thing."
"And yet, for the most part, the news that you see analyzed on Twitter comes from media organizations that are themselves thinly disguised propaganda outlets. You see it on cable news, you talk about it on Twitter. The result may feel like a debate, but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge. We think that's a bad system. We know exactly how it works, and we're sick of it," Carlson argued.
A 'New version' of 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'
After this denunciation of the mainstream media to which he has been a part for decades -- he has worked at CNN, MSNBC and until recently Fox -- Carlson then makes his announcement which ties in with his tweet -- "We are back" -- introducing the video.
"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," he said. "We bring some other things too, which we'll tell you about."
He gave no other details about this new show: nothing about the date for example. Musk and Twitter tested live streaming a few days ago and plan to relaunch Periscope, a streaming-video app which Twitter acquired in 2015 but removed from Apple's App Store and Google Play in March 2021. At the end of the video, his website, TuckerCarlson.com, was listed and invited viewers to text him.
Musk was one of Carlson's final guests at Fox News. His interview was broadcast over two evenings, April 18 and 19. During the interview, the two personalities, who have become conservative icons, discussed a range of subjects, including Musk's takeover of Twitter, wokeism, Trump, Biden, free speech, birth rates and more.
"On this platform, unlike the one-way street of broadcast, people are able to interact, critique and refute whatever is said," Musk reacted after Carlson made his huge announcement, noting that "anything misleading will get @CommunityNotes."
He continued:
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," the billionaire said.
"I hope that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform."
Carlson's arrival at Twitter is a huge blow for many conservative media outlets which had hoped to secure his services. It gives tremendous visibility to Twitter, as Musk tries to find new revenue streams for the platform, by attracting influencers/creators to create content.
However, one unknown remains: Carlson's contract with Fox does not expire until early 2025. What will the Murdoch family do? Will they let Carlson go or will they seek to enforce the contract to the end?
