- Tucker Carlson announced Tuesday his plans to bring his prime time show to Twitter.
- The ousted Fox News host's switch to social media is not based on any new contract, Musk tweeted.
Tucker Carlson is picking up his megaphone again, but it's unclear how much he'll poke the bear on Twitter under Elon Musk.
Carlson, freshly ousted from his primetime Fox News spot, announced on Tuesday that he'll be launching a new show on Twitter, touting the platform as "the last big one remaining" that allows free speech.
The move comes after a tenure at Fox News in which he expressed feeling trapped, leaked text messages from just after the 2020 election obtained by The Daily Beast suggest.
"I'm stuck with Fox," a text from Carlson to Brett Baier reads. "Got to do whatever I can to keep our numbers up and our viewers happy." A text from a month later also obtained by the Beast had Carlson lamenting, "Wish I knew where to run. But I'll die here."
Musk's Twitter may not be the promised land he's hoping for though.
Tech business journalist Kara Swisher put it this way: "Elon is not unlike Rupert," she said, referring to Carlson's former boss, Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, "which means he is the show and he will show you the door if you cross him. Level of difficulty: Rupert is canny and sane; Elon is, well, Elon."
While Musk has made it clear that there is no contract with Carlson and the ex-Fox News host is like any other content creator, Musk has been mercurial with what content he'll pump on Twitter, saying freedom of speech does not mean freedom of reach.
Musk, as Twitter's CEO, has advanced his preexisting reputation for strict leadership — encouraging remaining staff at Twitter to submit to "extremely hardcore" work weeks or risk being terminated and ruthlesslessly firing employees who disagreed with him or got in his way.
Musk is quick to change his mind on top talent — abruptly ousting Twitter's head of sales in November after begging her to stay at the company. One engineer, who dared to disagree with Twitter's new CEO publicly, found himself locked out of his work equipment following a brief spat with Musk online.
Under Musk's watch, the user experience has also become more restrictive. In the days following his takeover, Musk tweeted "comedy is now legal," on the platform – but promptly began banning users for impersonating him with their verified accounts or joking about his $44 billion acquisition of the platform. And freedom of speech is limited in terms of publicly available flight data — real-time flight trackers are also banned.
As hate speech surged on Twitter, Musk has appeared to prioritize the Twitter Blue subscription model over content moderation, stripping legacy verified accounts of their blue check status and offering it only to paid subscribers and dead celebrities, despite user protests.
Meanwhile, Carlson's former boss, Rupert Murdoch, reportedly made the decision to oust him, according to the Los Angeles Times. Fox News hasn't officially said why they parted ways with Carlson but the decision followed a sex discrimination lawsuit and a series of bombshell text messages exposed in Fox News' $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.
The news network's top brass complained about how much of a liability hosts like Carlson had become, urging them to "stop the Trump myth" after the 2020 election was called, per text messages released in the proceedings with Dominion. Texts also showed Carlson, and his ex-colleagues Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity griping about how the network hated them, scheming about how to use their power at the network.
Musk has said that Carlson would be considered a content creator and that he had no hand in Carlson's production deal. Carlson will likely seek to maintain his audience and political influence with the switch, according to Semafor.
Fox News and Carlson's attorney did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment. Twitter responded to Insider's request for comment with a poop emoji — the automatic response from the company since March, months after laying off its communications team.