BURBANK, California - Former Disney CEO Bob Iger said the entertainment giant had determined that a "substantial portion" of Twitter's users were "not real" in 2016, when it weighed a purchase of the social network.

Mr Iger said the Walt Disney and Twitter boards were prepared to enter negotiations when he got cold feet.

He said that, with Twitter's help, Disney learned that a substantial portion - though not a majority - of users were fake.

"I remember discounting the value," as a result, Mr Iger said, in remarks Wednesday at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills. It was not clear what Mr Iger meant by "substantial".

Billionaire Elon Musk has accused Twitter of withholding data on the true number of bot and spam accounts on the platform and is using the issue as his reason for dropping his US$44 billion (S$61.9 billion) offer to buy the company.

Twitter has sued Mr Musk to hold him to the deal. The trial will begin on Oct 17. REUTERS