Last week, Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, tweeted about his desire to have liberal TV hosts like former CNN anchor Don Lemon or MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on his platform. His aim is to balance out conservative viewpoints, represented by Tucker Carlson, with liberal perspectives.
Musk retweeted the second episode of Carlson’s show and expressed his support for the idea of Maddow and Lemon hosting their shows on Twitter. He emphasized that Twitter is a digital town square for everyone and that they would receive complete support.
Musk has reached out to Lemon before. On May 10th, Musk suggested that Lemon should consider broadcasting his show on Musk’s platform. This suggestion came after Lemon announced his departure from the struggling network.
“Have you considered doing your show on this platform? Maybe worth a try. Audience is much bigger,” Musk said on May 10, which was posted in response to Lemon’s fiery post announcing his exit from the embattled network.
Lemon co-anchored CNN This Morning with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, but the show’s viewership averaged a disappointing 360,000 before his departure. In contrast, Twitter has around 450 million active monthly users.
In the meantime, The Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow’s weekly program, consistently holds the top spot on MSNBC, attracting over 200,000 viewers in the coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic, according to USTVDB statistics.
For Musk, recruiting voices from across the political spectrum is a personal mission. In the span of two weeks, he has hosted Twitter Spaces events featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The billionaire consistently promotes Twitter as a platform where all voices are given a chance to be heard and where dynamic interactions occur that are unparalleled elsewhere.
However, this strategy has yet to prove successful in terms of the platform’s financial performance. Since Musk assumed control last October, ad revenue has plummeted by 59% as advertisers express concerns about potential chaos under the outspoken mogul.
During the period spanning from April 1 to early May, Twitter experienced a decline of $88 million in ad revenue compared to the previous year, as per documents examined by The New York Times.
The financially constrained social media platform has consistently failed to meet its sales forecasts, sometimes falling short by as much as 30%. According to the disclosed documents, there are no indications of an imminent improvement in these figures.
In a cost-cutting measure, Musk made the decision to terminate half of Twitter’s employees towards the end of the previous year. He asserted that this action would enable Twitter to achieve savings of $700 million in 2023.
