Elon Musk wants Disney CEO Bob Iger fired immediately. Musk’s call came after posts on X revealed that Disney is still advertising on Facebook and Instagram, even after New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Meta for alleged child sexual exploitation.
Disney cut advertising ties with Musk’s platform after he was accused of boosting an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In a series of X posts, Musk said Iger should be let go from Disney immediately.
“Bob Eiger thinks it’s cool to advertise next to child exploitation material. Real stand up guy,” Musk said.
At the New York Times DealBook Summit on Nov. 29, Musk accused Iger and other advertisers of blackmailing him after Disney announced it was pulling advertising from X.
“Don’t advertise,” Musk said on stage. “If someone is trying to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f— yourself. Go f— yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hi Bob, if you’re in the audience.”
Musk was referring to Iger, who had spoke earlier at the summit.
On Tuesday, Dec. 5, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a lawsuit against Meta for knowingly exposing children to the dangers of sexual exploitation and mental health harm.
The civil suit, filed against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claims Instagram and Facebook are a “breeding ground for predators who target children for human trafficking,” and allows adults to groom minors into participating in pornographic content.
Torrez’s agency conducted a thorough undercover investigation of Meta, spanning several months. The investigation involved the creation of decoy accounts on the platforms, portraying children aged 14 years and younger.
The investigation found these accounts were directed to a “stream of egregious, sexually explicit images – even when the child expressed no interest in the content.” It also found that Meta recommended these fake accounts to “join unmoderated Facebook groups devoted to facilitating commercial sex.”
Investigators also set up a decoy account that portrayed a mother who wanted to solicit her 13-year-old daughter for sex and “create a professional page to allow her daughter to share revenue from advertising.”
“Mr. Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to young users, and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the sexual exploitation of children,” Torrez said in a news release.
The lawsuit claims Meta failed to protect children from sexual abuse, online solicitation and human trafficking because the company “profits from its exposure of young users to harmful material” by “monetizing in the form of targeted advertising, the data that Meta gathers about its young users and their usage.”
The lawsuit does not seek to hold Meta liable as the publisher of this material but it does state the platform is responsible for “unlawful conduct in designing and maintaining its products in such a manner so as to cause known harms to its users.”
Torrez says the state will be investigating other companies. Zuckerberg is set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on child safety in January.
