Shocking news has just been revealed about the layoffs within the Walt Disney Company.
Since CEO Bob Iger replaced Bob Chapek and returned to leadership in November, he has made it clear that he is determined to cut costs for the company. Many assumed that the cost-cutting measures would include employee lay-offs, but nothing was confirmed until later in the year. Fans were saddened to hear Iger reveal during a February quarterly results call that his plan to save money includes eliminating over 7000 jobs. Now, Insider has reported that many of those layoffs will be happening sooner than originally thought.
A Dark Day for the Walt Disney Company
It has been revealed that Disney CEO Iger is reducing the number of employees at a rapid pace. Managers at Disney have been given orders to reduce their budgets and reduce their employee numbers. For the past two weeks, Disney has been making brutal cost savings decisions. Executives at the company are currently preparing budget cuts in all departments.
These executives have been assigned to create a list of employees that they deem to be redundant and disposable. These lists will be turned in to higher-ups in the next couple of weeks. After the lists are turned in, employees who are on them will be informed of their termination. It is unclear if the layoffs will happen in waves or all at once.
A staggeringly large number of employees will be included on the layoff lists. Out of the 7,000 jobs that were announced to be cut, 4,000 of those jobs will be on the upcoming list. That is a huge amount of employees, and this news is truly shocking to hear.
EXCLUSIVE: Disney executives are being directed to identify thousands of layoff candidates by April as CEO Bob Iger targets $5.5 billion in spending cuts $DIShttps://t.co/9UYC5Or35p via @businessinsider
In total, Bob Iger hopes to save the Walt Disney Company $5.5 billion. As the due date for the significant transformation draws near, the public will anxiously wait to see when terminations will happen and what areas will be affected the most.
In a new interview, Dr. Abigail Disney addressed criticisms of her loyalty to her family and the Disney legacy after speaking out about the economic crisis currently faced by Disney Parks Cast Members and CEO salaries.
At both the Disneyland Resort and the Walt Disney World Resort, Cast Members make the magic possible through their hard efforts each day but often face under-compensation for their exceptional Guest service. Since last August, unions within the STCU have held protests in Florida to petition Disney for a living wage, and renegotiate their contracts.
Moreover, production employees at the Walt Disney Studio are currently lobbying the Walt Disney Company for the right to unionize alongside the rest of the animation department, and costume department Cast Members spoke out about a gendered pay gap within entertainment. Of course, heir to the Disney name, Abigail, has been a vocal supporter of Cast Member wage rights for years, and is not above criticizing both the company, or its founder Walt.
However, with the release of a new documentary film, “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,” Disney has attempted to shed light on the situation, particularly the rate of change from how her grandfather Roy O. Disney, and great-uncle Walt Disney, treated their workers to how the multi-billion dollar conglomerate does today. In fact, on an episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate, Disney told hosts hosts Ginger Gadsden and Matt Austin that while she herself has an immense love for Disney, for her family, and for the Disney Parks, she feels the need to criticize the current situation because she has the privilege to change it.
Disney recalls a “great deal of affection” between Roy and his employees on visits to Disneyland as a child, and says she cannot imagine him being able to sleep at night knowing many of them struggled to put food on the table even working full-time, while Disney CEO Bob Iger and Bob Chapek rake in over $65 million yearly. For instance, a 2018 study found one in ten CMs have experienced homelessness, some even living in their cars in Disney parking lots, while almost 70% had experienced food insecurity, and 75% did not make enough to cover basic expenses, in what union leaders are calling an “economic crisis.”
Although many have dubbed Disney a “traitor” for her outspoken views, she maintains that the “insane” compensation Disney CEOs receive is not her issue, but rather that they continue to take it before making sure the employees responsible for their having it at all are properly compensated and taken care of in the same vein that her ancestors did. Furthermore, Abigail said that while the situation continues, she feels “a loyalty higher than Disney and that’s to my fellow human beings.”
According to Abigail, the Walt Disney Company can remain a profitable visionary while also supporting Cast Members’ wellbeing, and that management only tries to hire workers at the lowest price possible due to beliefs systems in the US which convince us these two ideals are mutually exclusive when they’re not.
Disney’s documentary will examine these myths, even at the expense of others criticizing her true loyalties:
I would say I probably love Disney more than any other super fan could possibly love Disney. It’s in my DNA, it’s down to my toes, and I remember every detail and every nuance of both of those parks. I will tell you, though, if you really, really, really love something, then you have to see it truthfully and you have to speak the truth about it and it’s not perfect. I wish it were.
Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has made his opinion on the Walt Disney Company crystal clear. Musk recently made headlines when he acquired the social media company Twitter at a steep price point of $44 billion. Since then, Musk has called out Disney and Apple, two of Twitter’s biggest advertisers.
Elon Musk is one of the most powerful people in the world. Musk is a businessman, investor, and visionary who is worth an estimated $196 billion. He is incredibly accomplished in his field, and holds positions including founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX, the CEO and product architect of Tesla, and the founder of The Boring Company. According to Forbes’s real-time billionaires list, Musk is the second-wealthiest person in the world.
Musk is known for his involvement in many incredibly lucrative endeavors. This is why some of the public was confused when he purchased Twitter four months ago. Twitter is not incredibly lucrative these days, despite the steel price point Musk paid for it. The Twitter financial situation has gotten worse for Musk, whose personality is very polarizing to the public. Since buying the company, Twitter’s advertising revenue has been basically cut in half.
The Walt Disney Company has continued to buy advertisements on the platform. Musk called out Disney and Apple to thank them for their continued support as the two biggest remaining marketers on the app. He expressed his gratitude for the Walt Disney Co on Tuesday, March 8, at the 2023 Morgan Stanley Technology Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco. At the conference, he explained that companies like Disney are going to help make Twitter lucrative once again and keep free speech alive.
At the conference, Musk explained, “There have been a few bumps in the road, but this is to be expected… Now we have the opportunity to grow [Twitter] into something spectacular. I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think we have a shot at being cash flow positive in the second quarter.”
It is yet to be determined if Disney will appreciate being called out. Elon Musk is incredibly controversial, and to be associated as his supporter is not a great look for the company. Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has received backlash for his leadership methods as well as his changes to the application. Only time will tell the future of Elon Musk’s relationship with the Walt Disney Company.
It’s already been a very busy week for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S. February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Octavio Jones/File Photo
On Monday, DeSantis announced his picks for new members who will serve on the board for the new-and-improved version of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, now called the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, thanks to a new provision that was first introduced by Florida lawmakers in early February 2023 during a special session. The new law gives DeSantis exclusive control over deciding who serves on the board.
The next day, the 44-year-old governor’s new memoir, titled, The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for American Revival was released by HarperCollins Publishers. And while the questions about when/whether DeSantis will announce his 2024 Presidential bid are not answered in the new book, the memoir does give readers some insight into what was actually taking place behind the scenes as the battle brewed between Disney and the Florida government following the passing of the Parental Rights in Education bill in March 2022.
In a chapter of his new book, DeSantis talks about Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek, who he says reached out to him and complained about the “pressure” he faced related to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” debacle. DeSantis recounts the conversation, saying, “As the controversy over the Parental Rights in Education bill was coming to a head, Chapek called me; he did not want Disney to get involved, but he was getting a lot of pressure to weigh in against the bill.”
DeSantis writes that Chapek said being pressured wasn’t new, but that “this time [was] different” and that he hadn’t “seen anything like this before.”
Last spring, Chapek told shareholders that he had spoken with Florida’s governor on March 9, urging him not to sign House Bill 1557, which was designed to keep public school teachers of Kindergarten through third grade students from using curriculum time to teach about gender identity and sexuality. Opponents of the bill referred to it as the “Don’t Say Gay bill,” even though no part of the bill’s language restricts teachers from saying the word gay. Further, the bill doesn’t restrict teachers in any grade from answering questions or speaking informally with students about those sensitive topics.
“I called Gov. DeSantis this morning to express our disappointment and concern that if the legislation becomes law, it could be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, non-binary, and transgender kids and families,” Chapek said to Disney’s shareholders.
The New York Post reported that Chapek was hesitant to get Disney involved in Florida politics in the months leading up the passing of the passing of the new legislation, but he said he was pressured by some within The Walt Disney Company, as well as by Democrats nationwide, to finally take a stand against the proposed legislation.
But DeSantis says he warned Chapek, saying that if the Mouse House did get involved in Florida’s legislation, “People like me will say, ‘Gee, how come Disney has never said anything about China, where they make a fortune?’”
In his memoir, DeSantis says that he told Chapek that if Disney stayed out of the political scene brought about by opponents of the bill, the Company would likely face 48 hours of outrage once the bill was signed into law. “[And] when I sign it, you will get another 48 hours of outrage, mostly online,” DeSantis said. “Then there will be some new outrage that the woke mob will focus on, and people will forget about this issue, especially considering the outrage is directed at a political-media narrative, not the actual text of the legislation itself.”
DeSantis says in his book that Disney and Bob Chapek “ultimately caved to leftist media and activist pressure and pressed the false narrative against the bill.”
But despite the almost-prophetic warning to Chapek, the Florida governor writes that he was surprised when Disney took steps to “escalate the battle” against the new law, as the company vowed to support those who would work to see the law repealed. It was after Disney’s public statement, denoucning the signing of the bill into law, that DeSantis began to speak publicly about how Disney’s “woke” political activism could lead him to rethink the company’s special tax district in Florida–the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
“Behind the scenes, I was not, as a father of children ages five, four, and two, comfortable with the continuation of Disney’s special arrangement,” DeSantis wrote in his memoir about Reedy Creek. “While the Walt Disney Company and its executives had a right to indulge in woke activism, Florida did not have to place the company on a pedestal while they did so—especially when the company’s activism impacted the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”
DeSantis goes on to say that he was surprised again when–as Florida began to make good on its talk about removing Disney’s special status in the state–left-wing voices and entities began to side with a big corporation–one of the biggest in the country.
“Even though Democrats often rail about the nefarious power exerted over politics by large corporations, and supposedly oppose special carveouts for big companies, they all dutifully lined up in support of keeping Disney’s special self-governing status,” DeSantis writes.
The lesson of the Disney saga, according to DeSantis, is that in an environment of “woke capital” where large companies employ their influence to advance left-wing political agendas, “old-guard corporate Republicanism is not up to the task at hand.”
DeSantis’ book aims to showcase his governing thesis that fighting for conservative principles paid off for Florida and could benefit other states and even the whole country. As a rumored 2024 presidential hopeful, DeSantis has led former President Donald Trump in a few early primary polls. He has not announced whether he will run.
Bob Chapek was removed from his post at Disney in November 2022 and replaced by veteran CEO Bob Iger. During a town hall meeting with Cast Members in November, Iger said to Disney Company employees, “Do I like the company being embroiled in controversy? Of course not. It can be distracting, and it can have a negative impact on the company. And to the extent that I can work to kind of quiet things down, I’m going to do that,” signaling his understanding about the importance of keeping the company out of the politics in Florida–and anywhere else for that matter.
Time will tell if Iger will keep to that commitment and whether the relationship between Disney and the State of Florida can be mended.
Some massive shifts are happening at the Walt Disney Company. Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden shook things up as she solidified her Senior Team. This change was big for Walden, marking her most significant move yet.
Since being promoted to co-chair of Disney Entertainment, the public has eagerly awaited Dana Walden’s first big move. It finally happened this week in the form of a memo where Walden announced some big shakeups within the company. Walden addressed her colleagues with a well-informed plan of how she would best reorganize her team to suit her needs as a leader.
In the memo, she breaks down that she will be shifting responsibilities for many of her colleagues. The memo makes it clear that Onyx Collective, a content brand now owned and operated by Disney Entertainment, is a massive focus for Walden. Tara Duncan will now focus solely on Onyx, which means Walden is relinquishing her previous responsibilities that she had for Freeform. Simran Sethi will take on Duncan’s duties at Freeform while also still holding on to her role at ABC Entertainment.
Courtney Monroe will now oversee all aspects of National Geographic, which Walden seems excited about. Monroe and Duncan will now report directly to John Landgraf. This restructuring is a massive boost for both Landgraf and Sethi, as they both have been given a lot more responsibility.
The full letter from Walden reads:
Dear Colleagues,
Since the announcement of Disney Entertainment, I’ve spent time thinking about how to organize my team in a way that will enable me to focus on my newly expanded role in partnership with Alan. I will continue to rely on the same incredible leaders who have delivered hit after hit onto our platforms and into our rich library, but I have made some changes to our structure, which are outlined below:
Onyx Collective remains a huge priority, and as its impressive roster of creators and series continues to grow, Tara Duncan will now focus exclusively on Onyx.
National Geographic Content recently earned its third Oscar nomination and has attracted some of the biggest stars to its impressive series and doc films slate. Courteney Monroe will now oversee all aspects of the brand, including its digital footprint and iconic magazine, along with its original content strategy.
Tara and Courteney will now report directly to John Landgraf, combining the strength of three prestigious brands.
As Tara’s focus shifts to Onyx, Freeform programming and development will be combined with ABC Entertainment, and Simran Sethi will oversee both. This represents Simran’s return to a brand she helped launch. She will continue to report to Craig Erwich.
Over the past six months, Ayo Davis and Craig have worked together very successfully on Disney Branded Television streaming originals. Ayo will continue to report to Craig for streaming, and now that structure will expand to also include the development and programming of Disney Channel and Disney Junior.
Debra OConnell, who recently joined my leadership team, will continue to oversee networks and ABC Owned Television Stations, and will add research, labor relations and TV business operations to her purview.
Disney Television Studios will remain under Eric Schrier, who will expand his responsibilities to include our global original television strategy, working closely with our talented regional leaders.
Great stories are the lifeblood of our company, and I will remain deeply connected to the creative side of our business. As we begin our new chapter together, I have the utmost confidence in this team of proven and formidable leaders. I am very grateful to Bob for reuniting and realigning our company in such a meaningful way.
I want you all to know how much I appreciate your passion and your pursuit of excellence, which will be key to our success in the months and years ahead.
Warmest regards,
Dana
Walden’s restructuring is a big first move for the new co-chair. These changes could likely be a determining factor in how she succeeds in this position moving forward. Fans of the Walt Disney Company will be eager to see how these changes pan out for Walden and her new Senior Team.
