Elon Musk has said the Disney boss, Bob Iger, should be “fired immediately” after the world’s biggest entertainment company joined an advertising boycott of his X platform.
The world’s richest man has embarked on a series of outbursts against companies halting their ad campaigns on the site, formerly known as Twitter, after he endorsed an antisemitic tweet last month.
“Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company,” Musk said in a series of tweets. “He should be fired immediately.”
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
Advertisers including Disney, IBM and Apple have “paused” their ad spend on X, which Musk bought for $44bn in October last year, since the billionaire shared his support for a tweet accusing Jewish people of “hatred against whites”, describing it as “the actual truth”.
Last week, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive issued a profanity-laden attack on advertisers joining the boycott in a widely shared interview at the New York Times DealBook summit.
“Don’t advertise,” Musk said. “If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself.”
He has denied his controversial tweet was antisemitic but has apologised, saying it might have been the “dumbest” thing he had ever shared on social media.
“I mean, look, I’m sorry for that … post,” he said. “It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000 it might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done. And I’ve tried my best to clarify six ways from Sunday, but you know at least I think it’ll be obvious that, in fact, far from being antisemitic, I’m in fact philosemitic.”
The X owner subsequently visited Israel and met the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, although they did not discuss the post or antisemitism.
Musk, who announced in July that ad revenue at X had halved, said in the interview that it has been a “hell of a year” and admitted he sometimes says “the wrong thing”.
In November 2022, Iger made a shock return as chief executive of Disney after his hand-picked replacement was ousted after a disastrous tenure that lasted less than three years. The 72-year-old had only officially retired as executive chair at the end of 2021.
During Iger’s acclaimed 15-year reign, Disney made a series of big acquisitions, including the Marvel film franchise, the Pixar animation studio and the Star Wars film franchise. He retired as chief executive in 2020, having delayed his exit several times to guide the company through the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
The company enjoyed a five-fold increase in market value under his leadership but after the appointment of Bob Chapek, who previously ran its theme park division, Disney’s share price plummeted and its battle to take on Netflix saw streaming losses soar into the billions.
However, Disney has suffered a rare setback at the box office recently, with the family film Wish and its latest Marvel offering bombing with audiences.
Musk, who tweeted that Iger “drops more bombs than a B-52”, also accused Disney of advertising on other social media platforms that host controversial content.
Disney declined to comment.
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