Billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk wrote Thursday that Disney CEO Bob Iger should be “immediately” fired, coming after the company pulled advertisements from his social media platform.
Around the same time, the X owner questioned why Disney is not pulling its ads from Meta after New Mexico sued the social media giant and alleged Meta, the parent company, has not done enough to protect children. Instagram and Facebook are “not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez of New Mexico said in a statement this week.
Neither Disney nor Mr. Iger have publicly responded to Mr. Musk’s post. The Epoch Times has contacted Disney for comment.
After the lawsuit was filed, Meta issued a statement strongly denying claims that its social media platforms put children at risk.
“We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators,” Meta spokesperson Nkechi Nneji said in a statement.
Last week during a New York Times interview, Mr. Musk accused companies who pull their ads from X of blackmail. “If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money? Go [expletive] yourself,” he said.
“Go [expletive] yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob, if you’re in the audience,” he added, in an apparent reference to Mr. Iger, chief executive of Disney.
Before his comments, Mr. Iger spoke earlier at the event and said that Disney felt the association with X following Mr. Musk’s move “was not a positive one for us.”
Starting last month, major U.S. companies, including Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, and NBCUniversal parent Comcast, suspended their ads on X, coming after a report from left-wing group Media Matters was published. X filed a lawsuit last week against Media Matters for defamation.
Mr. Musk himself appeared resolved that X could fail financially and blamed advertisers.
“If the company fails because of advertiser boycott, it will fail because of an advertiser boycott. And that will be what bankrupt the company and that’s what everybody on earth will know,” he said during the event. “Let the chips fall where they may.”
Hours after the New York Times interview, several prominent accounts on X initiated a campaign to call on people to boycott Disney or cancel their Disney+ accounts. “Stop giving money to people that hate you,” wrote End Wokeness on the platform.
“Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brand,” the filing added.
It came after the company became publicly embroiled in multiple political fights, including the company having issued a critical comment regarding a bill, the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which bans sexual and gender curriculum from being taught to young school children, which was backed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
