Disney Found a ‘Substantial Portion’ of Twitter Accounts Were Fake in 2016, Former CEO Reveals

It seems Elon Musk has another unlikely supporter at his side.

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger recently revealed that Disney found a "substantial portion" of Twitter accounts were fake when it was considering acquiring it in 2016.

Iger was the CEO of Disney for fifteen years, from his appointment into the position in 2005 until he resigned from the role in 2020, per CNBC. He was succeeded by the company's current CEO, Bob Chapek.

Disney's Discovery About Twitter's Accounts

Iger stated during his appearance at Vox Media's Code conference that he backed out of his plan of acquiring Twitter to use it to distribute Disney's content due to the "nastiness" within the social media paltform, per Vox.

According to the former Disney CEO, Twitter and Disney were already having talks about the acquisition and turning it into a global distribution platform for Disney's content in 2016. If the deal went through, Twitter would be full of news, sports, and entertainment straight from Disney - a solution that would have been a "phenomenal solution, distribution-wise in Iger's mind.

However, Iger thought that he might have not been looking at the deal as carefully as he needed to, which made him consider the "challenges and complexities" he was not prepared to undertake as a manager of a global brand.

He then revealed with Twitter's help, Iger and his team discovered that a substantial portion (but not a majority) of Twitter users were not real.

"I don't remember the number but we discounted the value heavily," Iger said. "Then you have to look, of course, at all the hate speech and potential to do as much harm as good."

He then said that Disney is in the business of "manufacturing fun," and that using Twitter to distribute Disney's content to the world is not something he can take on readily, making accepting the deal an irresponsible thing to do.

Twitter has long maintained that 5% of the accounts registered on its platform are bots, per Business Insider. However, Iger's revelation suggests that it may have been more than 5%.

Elon Musk Gripe With Twitter

The existence of bots in Twitter's platform isn't what Musk is after - he's looking for how many bots Twitter has. With Iger's statement saying that a substantial amount of Twitter's users were fake, Musk may have a fighting chance to legally renege on his acquisition deal with Twitter.

You may remember that Musk suddenly backed out of his acquisition deal with Twitter as he believes that the social media platform has been deceiving investors about the number of bots and fake accounts on its platform.

If the substantial amount of fake Twitter users is enough or more than enough for Musk's lawyers to prove that Twitter is lying to its investors, it could spell the end of Musk's acquisition deal with Twitter.

It doesn't help that the revelations of the former Twitter chief of security Pieter Zatko support Musk's arguments, and that Musk's legal team can cite his allegations about the company in court.