Former Disney CEO Says Company Found a 'Substantial Portion' of Twitter Users Were Not Real When It Evaluated Acquisition in 2016

Bob Iger, former Disney CEO, explained on Wednesday why Disney didn't acquire Twitter in 2016. He said: 'We enter the process immediately, looking at Twitter as the solution: a global distribution platform. It was viewed as sort of a social network. We were viewing it as something completely different. 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.' 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. 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. I don't remember the number but we discounted the value heavily. But that was built into our economics. Actually, the deal that we had was pretty cheap.'

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