According to the senior contributing writer for the American Journalism Review, Paul Farhi, Salon offers "provocative (if predictably liberal) political commentary and lots of sex.

[9]Salon.com, originally salon1999.com, was founded in 1995 by David Talbot, Gary Kamiya, Andrew Ross, Mignon Khargie, Scott Rosenberg, and Laura Miller.

[10] Regular contributors have included the political-opinion writers Amanda Marcotte, Scott Eric Kaufman, Heather Digby Parton and Sean Illing, critic Andrew O'Hehir and pop-culture columnist Mary Elizabeth Williams.

David Talbot, founder and original editor-in-chief, also served several stints as CEO,[11] most recently replacing Richard Gingras, who left to join Google as head of news products in July 2011.

[23] Salon purchased the virtual community The WELL in April 1999 (switching to its current URL, salon.com, at roughly that time), and made its initial public offering (IPO) of Salon.com on the NASDAQ stock exchange on June 22 of that year.

On October 9, 2003, Michael O'Donnell, the chief executive and president of Salon Media Group, said he was leaving the company after seven years because it was "time for a change."

[8] Salon closed its online chat board "Table Talk" on June 10, 2011, without stating an official reason for ending that section of the site.

[36] In December 2016 and January 2017, the company was evicted from its New York offices at 132 West 31st Street, a block from Madison Square Garden, for non-payment of $90,000 in back rent.

[37][38] In February 2017, Spear Point Capital invested $1 million into Salon, taking a 29% equity stake and three seats on the company's board.

[39] On August 30, 2019, Salon.com was sold for $5 million by Salon Media Group (Expert Market: SLNM) to privately held Salon.com, LLC, which is owned by Chris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup.

[40][41] Aspects of the Salon.com site offerings, ordered by advancing date: An article called "Deadly Immunity" written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on the Salon and simultaneously in the July 14, 2005 issue of Rolling Stone.

[43] The article focused on the 2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference and claimed that thimerosal-containing vaccines caused autism,[44] as well as the conspiracy theory that government health agencies have "colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public.

"[50] This caused controversy at the time, with some commentators accusing it of being "pro-pedophile" (in the sense of being pro-child sexual abuse) and Nickerson himself subject to a "backlash.