Tucker Carlson Says He's 'Grateful' For Elon Musk's Swift Call To Producer After Fox Firings
A “grateful” Tucker Carlson said that when he and executive producer Justin Wells were let go from Fox News, Elon Musk called Wells with an invitation to move to his social media platform — where Carlson now hosts a show.
In Thursday’s episode of his online program, Carlson told Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy that Fox dropped Wells “within four minutes” of his own surprise firing from the network earlier this year.
“He really didn’t do anything wrong. He was the best producer in all of television and everyone knew it,” Carlson said.
“Fox has a lot of nice people, a lot of very incompetent people obviously running it. And he was one of the only competent people in the whole business, but they fired him too.”
Carlson went on to note that “within an hour of that happening,” Musk — who owns the platform formerly known as Twitter but now dubbed X — called up Wells.
“[He] said, ‘You should come to Twitter.’ So I’ll never stop being grateful for that,” the host said.
“We don’t work for Elon or anything, but we’re using the site just like everyone else uses it, which is a platform that’s not censored. And I’m super grateful for that.”
Musk has previously stated that he doesn’t have a deal “of any kind whatsoever” with Carlson, who announced in May that he’d start a show on X.
At the time, the tech billionaire wrote that Carlson would be “subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators.” The host has since peddled conspiracy theories on Musk’s platform.
Elsewhere in the Portnoy video, Carlson — who has been accused of misogyny in the past — launched a sexist remark at Fox News, saying it is “run by fearful women.”
HuffPost didn’t immediately hear back from Fox News following a request for comment.
Head to the 43:06 mark in the clip below for the host’s comments on Wells.
Ep. 21 Dave Portnoy founded Barstool Sports and just completed the most impressive business transaction of our lifetime. He also just got into an epic fight and shared the video with us first. Watch. pic.twitter.com/W7AJ10kZni
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 31, 2023
