The former CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, has revealed that he had some of the same sentiments as Elon Musk aboutTwitter. For a long time, it was rumored that the SpaceX founder was planning to acquire the social media platform, and in April 2022 it was announced thatElon Musk would be officially buying Twitterfor roughly $44 billion. There were people both for and against the acquisition, while others were indifferent, but it would have been a noteworthy event either way.However, after the Tesla CEO shared his concerns about fake accounts,Musk ended up backing out of the Twitter buyout. Though the social media platform has claimed that bots make up less than 5% of the estimated 329 million total users on the site, Musk and many others are dubitative about the accuracy of that number. By July, when Twitter had still failed to provide convincing proof of its claims about spam accounts, the entrepreneur terminated the pending deal.RELATED:Elon Musk Explains Why He Won’t Make Video Game Console to Compete With PlayStation and XboxIn a recent interview with Vox, Bob Iger, who served as CEO of The Walt Disney Company from 2005 to 2020, revealed that Disney had at one time also considered buyingTwitter. The boards of the two companies had even agreed to the acquisition, but the deal ultimately fell through for a variety of reasons. Though the number of fake accounts wasn’t cited as one of the deciding factors, according to Iger, “[W]e did look very carefully at all of the Twitter users… [W]e at that point estimated with some of Twitter’s help that a substantial portion – not a majority — were not real.”
Oddly enough, Twitter initially opposed Musk’s acquisition and came up with a “poison pill” plan to intervene, which would allow specific shareholders to buy up company stock at a discount or even acquire them for free. This is a tactic used by companies to block a hostile takeover. However, once the deal fell through, the social media company objected to that move as well, and atrial between Musk and Twitter is scheduled to begin in October.
While many people seemed generally uninterested in the possibility of Twitter changing ownership, others expressed concerned that the business magnate might introduce unwanted changes to the platform. It was rumored thatMusk planned to charge money for some Twitter features, for example, or that he would let banned controversial figures return to the platform.
That said, the social media site itself is planning to introduce changes to the platform. The company has begun testing an edit button, a feature that has been asked for by users since the site’s inception.Twitterhas also actively been trying to find ways to monetize the site, adding a premium subscription option called Super Follows and a Tip Jar last year. Another feature known as Ticketed Spaces, which allows hosts to charge for access to their Twitter Spaces, was introduced in August 2021.
