Can Tucker Carlson relaunch his show on Twitter despite still being under contract with Fox?

Former Fox News star Tucker Carlson announced earlier this week that he would bring his show to Twitter.

Carlson told his followers about his plans in a video posted to his Twitter account but did not provide any details on when he may begin to host his show on the platform. A handful of far-right news outlets had offered Carlson deals to join their teams, but at this point, it looks that Carlson will be trying out an independent path, the source of the financing for which remains opaque. Additionally, while Carlson was incredibly successful while at Fox, it remains to be seen whether his viewers, which tended to be older than the average Twitter user, will follow him on the platform.

Carlson remains under contract with Fox

Under his contract with Fox News, Carlson cannot join a competing network, even though he was fired. Axios has reported that Carlson’s contract does not expire until January 2025 and that the network plans to continue paying the former host to ensure that he cannot begin working for a competing network. Lawyers for Carlson are fighting the network over this decision, and he may need to wait until these negotiations have been settled before he begins streaming his show on Twitter.

How has Elon Musk responded to Carlson’s announcement?

Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, responded to the news from Carlson, saying that the social media platform has “not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever” and that “Tucker is subject to the same rules [and] rewards of all content creators.” However, Musk hopes to boost ad revanue and engagement on the app by creating a subscription feature that will allow users to collect revanue from their content.

“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. I hope that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform,” tweeted Musk.