On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality launched his show on Twitter. A day later, Fox News informed Carlson’s lawyers that he had violated his contract with the launch of said show.
After being let go by Fox News, Carlson, who has been on the sidelines since April, debuted his new show, Tucker on Twitter, with a 10-minute monologue delivered with the same commentary and style as his previous primetime program.
Ep. 1 pic.twitter.com/O7CdPjF830
Advertisement— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2023
According to Axios’ Sara Fischer, once the show was posted on Twitter, Fox News’ general counsel Bernard Gugar sent a letter to Carlson’s lawyers stating that Carlson was in breach of his contract.
“In connection with such breach and pursuant to the Agreement, Fox expressly reserves all rights and remedies which are available to it at law or equity.”
Carlson has a non-compete clause in his contract; breaking it would mean he’d forgo the $25 million owed to him by Fox for the remainder of his contract, which runs out in January 2025.
Tucker’s lawyers, represented by Bryan Freedman, responded to the letter saying, “Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events.”
Carlson, who was a direct casualty of the $787.5 million settlement made by Fox News towards Dominion Voting System, had mentioned moving his show to Twitter, posting on the social media platform 15 days after his dismissal from Fox News, saying, “There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter, where we are now. Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops.”
So far, Carlson has only posted one episode of his Carlson on Twitter show. Unknown right now is when other episodes will be posted, at what frequency, and whether the legal response from Fox News has prevented him from a full-scale roll-out.