Don Lemon welcomed Kara Swisher to the second episode of his digital video show, and the longtime journalist and podcast host shared where Lemon’s interview with Elon Musk went wrong.
During the debut episode of The Don Lemon Show, Lemon sat down with the billionaire owner of the X platform. The interview turned contentious at times, with Musk going as far as to suggest Lemon should “choose his questions carefully”.
On the second episode of the program, Lemon asked Kara Swisher for her thoughts on the interaction, and she had two main takeaways about where things got off the rails.
“I thought it was an excellent interview. I thought it was very fair. I think two things happened. One, he is so surrounded by people who kiss his ass all the time or lick him up and down all day, that he’s not used to any pushback whatsoever anymore. He used to be, by the way,” said Swisher. “This is not a new, fresh thing for him to be pushed back on. But he doesn’t like it at all. So that’s one.
“Two, he’s easily bored. I know it sounds crazy, I don’t think you were boring, I don’t think your questions were boring, but he was bored, and so he got irritated. He got irritated that he had to ask questions or play word games with you. He did a lot of those, by the way. And then he got irritated that he had to pay you,” Swisher posited. “He doesn’t like media. So he thought ‘Why am I paying this guy for this bulls—?’
“He didn’t like your questions. They weren’t sycophantic and he likes a little bit of a fight, and you were being very fair. Unusually fair. He doesn’t deserve the fairness you gave him in a lot of ways.”
Later in the interview, Swisher lamented that things went wrong between Elon Musk and Lemon. She claimed Musk is “such a brilliant guy”, but added that he’s “just another egomaniac tech guy” suggesting “he’s just like everyone else” in the space. She added that she admires his ability to “handle big ideas.”
