https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/disney-ceo-bob-iger-calls-175842797.html
Disney CEO Bob Iger Calls “Retaliation” By Gov. Ron DeSantis “Not Only Anti-Business But Anti-Florida”
Jill Goldsmith and Dominic Patten
Mon, April 3, 2023 at 1:58 PM EDT·4 min read
“A company has a right to freedom of speech just like an individual does,” the CEO said of Disney’s criticism last year of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. Acknowledging that the company’s response under previous chief executive Bob Chapek wasn’t handed as artfully as it could have been, the past and present chief hit back at the Florida governor with some of the GOP’s own talking points. DeSantis “retaliates against us — in effect to punish a company for exercising its constitutional right,” he said. “And that seems really wrong to me.”
He later noted that “diversity is a real priority for us” and expressed his desire that Disney continue to create content that promotes “greater understanding, greater acceptance.”
What a difference a year makes.
Today’s meeting follows Iger having fended off a proxy battle, conveniently eliminated a thorn-in-the-side called Ike Perlmutter amid a wave of layoffs to streamline the company, and apparently clawing back the company’s longstanding special rights on 27,000 acres around Orlando, which Florida lawmakers and DeSantis thought had been neutralized by a law they passed last year. However, the Disney-controlled Reedy Creek board, at its last meeting before state appointees stepped in, signed a 30-year development deal with the company. Following all the public notice and hearings requirements, the new deal stripped the DeSantis appointees of any real power and rubbed some salt in the wound by declaring the agreement was to run until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England.” It wasn’t publicized, but it was public — though the new board did not notice it until this month, which has lots of people scratching their heads and DeSantis livid.
Caught flat-footed last week,the governor released a letter just before today’s shareholder meeting challenging the legality of that late-breaking deal and vowing to investigate.
Disney CEO Bob Iger Calls “Retaliation” By Gov. Ron DeSantis “Not Only Anti-Business But Anti-Florida”
Jill Goldsmith and Dominic Patten
Mon, April 3, 2023 at 1:58 PM EDT·4 min read
“A company has a right to freedom of speech just like an individual does,” the CEO said of Disney’s criticism last year of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. Acknowledging that the company’s response under previous chief executive Bob Chapek wasn’t handed as artfully as it could have been, the past and present chief hit back at the Florida governor with some of the GOP’s own talking points. DeSantis “retaliates against us — in effect to punish a company for exercising its constitutional right,” he said. “And that seems really wrong to me.”
He later noted that “diversity is a real priority for us” and expressed his desire that Disney continue to create content that promotes “greater understanding, greater acceptance.”
What a difference a year makes.
Today’s meeting follows Iger having fended off a proxy battle, conveniently eliminated a thorn-in-the-side called Ike Perlmutter amid a wave of layoffs to streamline the company, and apparently clawing back the company’s longstanding special rights on 27,000 acres around Orlando, which Florida lawmakers and DeSantis thought had been neutralized by a law they passed last year. However, the Disney-controlled Reedy Creek board, at its last meeting before state appointees stepped in, signed a 30-year development deal with the company. Following all the public notice and hearings requirements, the new deal stripped the DeSantis appointees of any real power and rubbed some salt in the wound by declaring the agreement was to run until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England.” It wasn’t publicized, but it was public — though the new board did not notice it until this month, which has lots of people scratching their heads and DeSantis livid.
Caught flat-footed last week,the governor released a letter just before today’s shareholder meeting challenging the legality of that late-breaking deal and vowing to investigate.
