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Billionaire Elon Musk faces criticism from Tesla owners following his decision to pull the Disney+ app from their vehicles amid his ongoing row with Disney CEO Bob Iger after Disney pulled their ads from X, formerly Twitter.
One X user brought the removal to everyone's attention, observing that the change was likely "in retaliation to Disney pulling advertising from X."
They added:
"So now I, as a mom, get to deal with telling my toddlers we can’t watch Disney+ while in our Tesla and deal with their upset feelings because 2 grown men can’t have a civil discussion and move on. "
"This has WAY more of an affect on Tesla owners than it does Disney. Disney is freakin loaded and they’re definitely not reliant on their app being in every Tesla vehicle. Plus I’m sure Bon Iger isn’t up in the night crying about this."
"This comes off like a temper tantrum. And I feel like Tesla owners are now caught in the crossfire of something that is absolutely not their fault."
You can see the post below.
The decision comes after 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 called out 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 and said Iger and other advertisers who've distanced themselves from X should "go f**k" themselves.
Disney is among several firms, including IBM, Apple, and Lionsgate, that have withdrawn ads from X due to Musk's controversial tweet and reports from Media Matters highlighting their ads alongside offensive content.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.
An X community adds some context for the move, namely that the app seems to have been removed for users who hadn't accessed it on their Tesla before, as Musk reportedly threatened to do.
But it's a petty move just the same, and people online were not amused.
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."
Musk told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin during the summit that 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.