Fox News has sent a “cease-and-desist” letter to Tucker Carlson as he ramps up a competing series on Twitter that drew a combined 169 million views for its first two episodes, Axios reported Monday afternoon.

Fox is continuing to pay its former host — who was taken off the air in April — and maintains that his contract keeps his content exclusive to Fox through Dec. 31, 2024. Carlson, who worked at both CNN and MSNBC earlier in his career, quickly became Fox’s most popular personality after replacing Bill O’Reilly in the network’s prime-time lineup in 2016.

Fox cut ties with Carlson less than a week after it agreed to pay $787 million to settle a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s airing of false claims following the 2020 presidential election. Carlson had been expected to be among the first witnesses called if Dominion’s case had gone to trial, but the two parties settled on the same day that opening statements were expected. Dominion had contended that some Fox programs had falsely aired allegations that the company had rigged the election against President Donald Trump, even though several Fox executives and personalities didn’t believe them. Carlson’s show was not among them; emails and text messages revealed as part of the lawsuit showed him profanely ridiculing one of the accusers.

Since Carlson was ousted from Fox, he has begun producing a bare-bones version of his Fox program, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” and posting it directly to Twitter. The first two episodes of his new show — “Tucker on Twitter” — were straight-to-camera monologues.