Billionaire Elon Musk was criticized after he issued a profane response to advertisers that withdrew their advertisements from X, formerly Twitter, amid a controversy over his posts, which were criticized as antisemitic.
Musk also called out Disney CEO Bob Iger in his rant during the New York Times DealBook Summit, admitting an advertising boycott could tank the social media platform—though he insisted such a development would not be his fault.
During an interview with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin—who he at one point referred to by the wrong name—Musk gave the following response:
“If somebody’s going to try and blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f**k yourself.
"Go. F**k. Yourself. Is that clear?"
[referring to Iger] "Hey Bob!"
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Though X has been bleeding advertisers for months, Musk's current controversy arose after Musk agreed with Jewish conservative Charles Weber, who, addressing Israel's campaign against Hamas and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, said that "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them."
Musk responded that Weber was speaking "the actual truth" when he said he doesn't care that "western Jewish populations [are] coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much."
Disney is among several firms, including IBM, Apple, and Lionsgate, that have withdrawn ads from X due to Musk's controversial tweet and reports from Media Matters highlighting their ads alongside offensive content. Musk has taken legal action against Media Matters over the report.
Musk said he "should in retrospect not have replied to [Weber] and should have written in greater length what I meant." He said he was "sorry" but claimed his "clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic."
Reports suggest X may face financial repercussions, with estimates ranging from $11 million to as much as $75 million in potential losses from the advertiser pullout.
Many have criticized Musk for his unrepentant remark.
Iger himself told Sorkin in a separate interview that he had "a lot of respect" for Musk and "what he’s accomplished and not just, you know, one business but a few businesses."
However, he firmly drew the line, saying that Musk "taking the position that he took in quite a public manner, we just felt that the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us, and we decided we would pull our advertising."
Iger said he has not "re-addressed" the advertising pause "since the decision was made, noting that different Disney properties, including ABC and ESPN, presently "use X as a platform to communicate."
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