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Bob Iger reveals why Disney dropped plan to acquire Twitter, and it will make Elon Musk very happy

Iger revealed that they dropped their plan to acquire Twitter after they discovered that 'substantial portion' of Twitter users 'were not real'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Former Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed on Wednesday, September 7, that they dropped their plan to acquire Twitter after they discovered that 'substantial portion' of Twitter users 'were not real.' Iger made the comment while speaking at the Code Conference hosted by Vox in Los Angeles. "We did look very carefully at all of the Twitter users — I guess they’re called users — and we at that point estimated with some of Twitter’s help that a substantial portion — not a majority — were not real," he said.

Iger went on to say, “We could put news, sports, entertainment, [and] reach the world. And frankly, it would have been a phenomenal solution, distribution-wise. Then, after we sold the whole concept to the Disney board and the Twitter board, and we’re really ready to execute — the negotiation was just about done — I went home, contemplated it for a weekend, and thought, "I’m not looking at this as carefully as I need to look at it."

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“Yes, it’s a great solution from a distribution perspective. But it would come with so many other challenges and complexities that as a manager of a great global brand, I was not prepared to take on a major distraction and having to manage circumstances that weren’t even close to anything that we had faced before,” Igor added.

This new development comes after earlier Elon Musk made similar claims on September 5 that 90% of comments on his tweets are made by bots. 

Alluding to Musk's claim, Iger said, “Interestingly enough, because I read the news these days, we did look very carefully at all of the Twitter users — I guess they’re called users? — and we at that point estimated with some of Twitter’s help that a substantial portion — not a majority — were not real. Then you have to look, of course, at all the hate speech and the potential to do as much harm as good. We’re in the business of manufacturing fun at Disney — of doing nothing but good, even though there are others today that criticize Disney for the opposite, which is wrong. This was just something that we were not ready to take on and I was not ready to take on as the CEO of a company and I thought it would have been irresponsible.”

It is significant to note that Iger's remarks coincide with a legal dispute between Twitter and billionaire businessman Elon Musk over Musk's agreement to purchase the social media platform for $44 billion. According to billionaire Musk, Twitter misled him and regulators about the actual amount of spam or bot accounts on the microblogging platform. Twitter however  asserted that 5% or less of the accounts on its site are fake or bots.