Bob Iger Would ‘Be Open’ To Meeting With Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and The Walt Disney Company continue to battle over the former Reedy Creek Improvement District, Disney CEO Bob Iger has gotten blunter in his comments on the governor’s actions.
When Iger returned to the company last November, he chose to take the high road in his public comments on DeSantis. Instead of openly attacking the governor, Iger instead highlighted the mutually beneficial relationship that Disney and Florida have enjoyed for over 50 years.
Following Florida’s dissolution of the Reedy Creek Improvement District and the creation of the state-overseen Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, it seemed as if Disney would accept the new arrangement. The company even released a statement saying that they were ready to work within the new framework.
Disney Out-Maneuvers Florida
Subsequently, however, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District learned that in the waning days of Reedy Creek, the district ceded control of the land in and around Walt Disney World to the Walt Disney Company. These binding agreements left the new CFTOD largely powerless.
In the wake of this legal maneuver, DeSantis has continued to ramp up his public attacks on Disney. He has even suggested that the state would add tolls to Disney’s roads.
Iger Speaks Out
For his part, Bob Iger, after initially remaining silent on DeSantis’s latest ploy, finally fired back at the governor during Disney’s annual meeting.
“He’s decided to retaliate against us, including the naming of a new board to oversee the property, in effect to seek to punish a company for its exercise of a constitutional right. And that just seems really wrong to me,” Iger told shareholders.
He then revealed that Disney had plans to invest over 17 billion dollars in Florida over the next decade, a plan that would create tens of thousands of jobs.
“And so our premise is that any action that thwarts those efforts simply to retaliate for a position the company took sounds not just anti-business, but it sounds anti-Florida,” he concluded.
Disney Benefits Florida
In a recent interview with TIME Magazine, the Disney CEO was a bit more measured in his response.
Instead of mentioning DeSantis, Iger once again highlighted how beneficial Disney has been to Florida.
“Disney World opened just over 50 years ago. It was the vision and the dream of Walt Disney, probably the most ambitious thing he ever did—turning swampland in Central Florida into a business that employs over 75,000 people, that is visited by tens of millions of people every year, that is a major tourist destination in the United States, and for the state of Florida, that creates huge value for our company and its employees, and for the state of Florida itself.”
“Our sole goal in Florida is to continue creating that value for all those constituencies. All we want is a relationship with the state that enables us to continue to do that. We have the wherewithal and we have the desire to continue to invest there to grow that business so that we can hire more people so that we can increase our attendance, and so that we can basically increase more value for the Walt Disney Company and for the state of Florida. It’s that simple.”
Open to A Meeting
Bob Iger is clearly more comfortable playing the mediator. After all, it makes little sense for Disney or Florida to continue feuding. So, would he sit down and talk to Governor DeSantis?
“I do not view this as a going-to-mattresses situation for us. If the governor of Florida wants to meet with me to discuss all of this, of course, I would be glad to do that. You know, I’m one that typically has respected our elected officials and the responsibility that they have, and there would be no reason why I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
A calm, rational, meeting between DeSantis and Iger seems too good to be true in today’s political environment. Still, we can still hope. With Iger publicly announcing that he would be open to meeting with DeSantis, the ball is now in the governor’s court.
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