A sizable portion of Twitter users in 2016 was ‘not real,’ according to a former Disney CEO

Twitter

In 2016, according to Disney’s former CEO, the majority of Twitter users were “not real.”

At the time, the media and entertainment behemoth was thinking about buying the social media site.

Elon Musk and Twitter are scheduled to go on trial in October, which is when Bob Iger made his remarks.

Disney (NYSE:DIS)

When considering buying Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) in 2016, the former CEO of Disney (NYSE:DIS), Bob Iger, claimed that the entertainment company discovered that many of the social media platform’s users were “not real.”

Reuters quoted Iger as saying at the Code Conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday that the boards of Twitter (TWTR) and Disney (DIS) were ready to start talks if he got cold feet. A “substantial portion,” he claimed, of Twitter users were fake. Iger admitted at the conference that he “remembered discounting the value” as a result of the fake problem.

Iger’s comments come as billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk fights with Twitter (TWTR) in an effort to back out of his $44 billion purchase of the company. One of his main justifications for trying to back out of the deal is that he has used fake accounts.

Legal woes

On Wednesday, Musk suffered a setback in his legal battle with Twitter when the Delaware judge presiding in Twitter v. Musk denied Musk’s request to postpone the trial. However, the judge did grant Musk’s request to include whistleblower claims in his countersuit against the company he had agreed to purchase.

Musk announced that he was ending the agreement in July. In order to enforce the contract, Twitter then sued him. Musk countersued, claiming the business had deceived him.

The two sides are now racing toward a five-day trial to resolve Musk’s $44B proposal to acquire Twitter, still set to begin Oct. 17.

Featured Image – Megapixl © Boggy

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