Tesla has removed Disney+ from some of its vehicles amid Elon Musk having an online fight with Disney CEO Bob Iger. The fight started when Disney halted its advertising on X after Musk agreed with and amplified antisemitic content, for which he eventually apologized.
Every week, there’s a new drama with Elon Musk on X, formerly known as Twitter. It sometimes indirectly affects Tesla, but this time, it affects it directly.
The current drama stems from Musk giving support to an antisemitic post on X, which he didn’t initially apologize for, though admitted that it was a mistake a week later. He further apologized but was already attacking Disney. In the meantime, the result was a massive backlash, where many companies stopped advertising on X, including Apple and Disney.
Musk took a particular issue with frequent right-wing target Disney – in the interview when he apologized for the tweet, he attacked advertisers for pulling out almost in the same breath.
If I was ever going to get a Tesla, this would convince me not to. It’s bad enough when cars have built in features blocked by subscriptions like heated seats, or apps removed due to contract disputes like YouTube. But having your entire car at the whim of someone like this is wild. Imagine you can’t use your GPS because you made a post he didn’t like.
Also, is this legal? It kinda feels like extortion at least. Maybe false advertisement if it was an advertised feature.
Legal? Defintely: it’s at most a civil disagreement between corporate-preople. If it were anyone other than Elon, I’d be sure that the contracts included some kind of termination clause that lets Tesla do this, possibly by still paying Disney+, possibly by paying Disney a termination fee. Because it’s Elon, I’d say there’s probably a lawsuit incoming, just as soon as Disney Legal’s printers finish the gold leaf trim on 1000 page filing.
I think they’re looking for more a consumer perspective. Disney will probably sue for a breach of contract, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow ended up signing a TOS that allows Tesla to make changes whenever they want. From a consumer perspective, definitely legal to just remove an app. False advertising? Nah, when you buy the car/use the infotainment center, you’re agreeing to a TOS that requires you give your first born to the gigafactory they built.
Seriously though, it’s very standard practice that a TOS includes language that the service can change in quality at any given time with no warning.