Disney CEO Bob Iger has slammed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and said the company plans to spend more than $17 billion on Disney World over the next 10 years.
Iger addressed the ongoing battle between Disney and DeSantis during a shareholders meeting on Monday (3 April), calling the governor “anti-business” and “anti-Florida”.
The entertainment company clashed with DeSantis after it opposed Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, with new legislation giving the governor authority over who runs Walt Disney World’s special governing district.
$17bn investment for Disney World
“While the company may have not handled the position that it took very well, a company has a right to freedom of speech, just like individuals do… the governor got very angry about the position Disney took, and it seems like he’s decided to retaliate against us, including the naming of a new board to oversee the property and the business – in effect to seek to punish a company for its exercise of a constitutional right,” Iger added.
“And that just seems really wrong to me – against any company or individual, but particularly against a company that means so much to the state.”
Iger continued in the meeting: “We’re currently planning now to invest over $17 billion in Walt Disney World over the next 10 years, and those investments, we estimate, will create 13,000 new Disney jobs and thousands of other indirect jobs, and they’ll also attract more people to the state and generate more taxes.
“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, and I’ll just leave it at that.”
Disney‘s special governing district was previously called the Reedy Creek Improvement District. DeSantis has renamed it the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and appointed a five-member board to run it.
Late last month, however, the new board said it has been stripped of many of its powers by restrictive covenants that cite King Charles III.
Images: Disney
