Ever since Tucker Carlson was abruptly and mysteriously canned from Fox News, people have wondered where he’d wind up next? (Provided his old employer didn’t use his contract to keep him off-air for nearly two years.) Would he wind up at one of those low-rent Fox copycats like Newsmax or OANN? Would he start his own rival rightwing company? Would he go the way of other Fox alumni, like Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Megyn Kelly — i.e., become mostly irrelevant? Two weeks later we have an answer, and it’s none of the above.
As per Mediaite, Carlson is heading to…Twitter? On Tuesday, the guy whose voice was recently used to dupe Alex Jones into agreeing to some mutual nipple-licking (seriously!) dropped a new video on Twitter. Its caption read “We’re back.”
We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023
Unlike the video Tucker posted a couple days after his firing, this wasn’t cryptic and dog-whistle-y. It began with him accusing the mainstream media of misleading the masses, who are then left “manipulated” — a pretty rich charge from the guy who edited Jan. 6 Capitol riot footage to make it look peaceful. He also subtweeted his old employers, saying that if one “bumps up” against certain limits of free speech enough times, “you will be fired for it.”
He eventually gets to the big announcement. “Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” Carlson revealed. He called the social media giant, at least under current owner Elon Musk, the “last big” platform for unfettered free speech “remaining in the world.” (Note: In the early days, Musk vindictively and pettily suspended the accounts of journalists he didn’t like.)
The news comes after reports that surfaced over the weekend that Carlson had had a secret meeting with Musk.
What does this mean for Tucker’s Fox News contract? Puck’s Dylan Byers said that by moving to Twitter, he’ll “forgo at least $25 million owed to him by Fox Corp. in order to break non-compete clause.”
🚨 NEWS: Tucker Carlson will relaunch his show *on Twitter* with help from former Fox News staff. He will forgo at least $25 million owed to him by Fox Corp. in order to break non-compete clause.@PuckNews
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 9, 2023
This could lead to a messy legal battle — which Carlson reportedly may want to happen anyway. Given that all the revelations that have been made about him — including that he hated Donald Trump’s guts, at least during the aftermath of the 2020 election — haven’t appeared to make him less popular with his base, maybe he’s not worried about all that dirt Fox News honchos allegedly have on him. Like Trump, embarrassing/bone-chilling revelations only seem to make him stronger.
(Via Mediaite)