Fool's Day: Elon Musk says he’s joining Disney to make it more 'woke', in a "recycled" joke
Elon Musk and Disney chief Bob Iger have been feuding since Disney joined 200 major advertisers including IBM and Apple to leave X in November 2023 after Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic post.
Billionaire Elon Musk told his his almost 180 million followers on X (known as Twitter in the pre-Musk era) that he’s off to a new job at Disney.
The Tesla and X owner wrote: “Excited to join Disney as their Chief DEI Officer. Can’t wait to work with Bob Iger & Kathleen Kennedy to make their content MORE woke!
“Even the linguini.”
The April Fool's Day joke doubled up as a jab at Disney chief Bob Iger.
Musk and Iger have been feuding since Disney joined 200 major advertisers including IBM and Apple to leave X in November 2023 after Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic post.
“The association with that position, Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us,” Iger later said at an event.
In December 2023, during an interview at The New York Times’ DealBook summit, Musk said that the advertisers who had boycotted the platform could go to hell. “Don’t advertise,” he said before hitting out at Iger specifically. “If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go f*** yourself. Go f*** yourself, is that clear? Hey, Bob, if you’re in the audience. That’s how I feel, don’t advertise.”
A week later, he took to X to say that Iger should be “fired immediately” and that “Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company.”
Musk has also openly criticized Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies at major companies like Disney. Musk has previously slammed DEI policies as ‘institutionalised racism and sexism’. Earlier this year, he said he would help actor Gina Carano fight her lawsuit against Disney after she was fired from her role in “The Mandalorian” due to controversial social media posts about the Holocaust, the pandemic and trans rights.
However, Musk's 2024 April Fool's Day post appears to have been recycled from one shared by podcaster Konstantin Kisin. A few minutes before Musk made his joke, Kisin had written: "As of today, I am resigning from TRIGGERnometry. The opportunity to join the BBC as Chief Diversity Officer is an opportunity I simply couldn't turn down."
Musk replied to Kisin's joke with a single crying-with-laughter emoji.
