Elon Musk Calls For Firing Of Disney CEO Amid Ad Boycott

Elon Musk continued this week to focus his ire on the chief executive of Disney, after it and other advertisers “paused” their ad spend on X (formerly Twitter).

In a number of different tweets on Thursday about Disney and its CEO Bob Iger, Musk had replied to one tweet and said that Iger “should be fired immediately. Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company.”

Musk’s latest broadside against Bob Iger comes as X contends with an advertising boycott, after a report from Media Matters alleged that Twitter was continuing to display extremist content alongside adverts from big brand names.

Advertising boycott

After the advertising pull out, Elon Musk responded by filing a “thermonuclear” lawsuit against Media Matters, claiming it had filed an “intentionally deceptive report”.

Matters however had not been helped when Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which he later apologised for, after a strong rebuke from the White House.

But that apology was overshadowed in Musk’s infamous appearance last month at the 2023 DealBook Summit, where he told advertisers who had suspended campaigns on X to “go [expletive] yourself.”

When Musk was questioned at the DealBook Summit about the advertising boycott, he lashed out in an expletive filled rant.

“I don’t want them to advertise,” Musk responded. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go [expletive] yourself”.

Musk then doubled down in front of the shocked audience.

“Go. [Expletive]. Yourself,” he slowly reiterated. “Is that clear? Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel.”

He seemed to refer to Disney chief executive Bob Iger, who had spoken at the summit earlier in the day.

And now Musk’s latest broadside against Disney confirms that its CEO Bob Iger is still firmly the focus of Musk’s anger.

He should be fired immediately.

Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 7, 2023

Trolls, lunatics

Days before Musk’s outburst, Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales had warned that X was “overrun by trolls and lunatics”, and that people are fleeing the platform.

The major of Paris recently announced she was quitting X, calling it a “gigantic global sewer.”

Musk during his outburst also acknowledged that advertisers could kill X, as it was known that advertising made up about 90 percent of Twitter revenue (before Musk’s takeover), and successive controversies have taken a heavy toll on that revenue stream.

Elon Musk has previously admitted a massive decline in advertising on X, and in the summer Musk tweeted that the social media platform has lost about 50 percent of its ad revenues since he took over the company in October 2022.