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Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have a beef. The governor and Disney World have been in a battle ever since Disney’s previous CEO, Bob Chapek, spoke out last year against the state’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, which bans instructions about sexual orientation and gender identity at some elementary school classes. For a while it looked like DeSantis was winning when he seized control of Disney World’s special district, but in a stealth move, the company managed to stay independent by slipping in a clause at the last minute. Since then, the governor has vowed to “void anything Disney did on the way out the door.” And Iger called DeSantis’ retaliation as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida” earlier this month.
But Disney’s returning CEO, Bob Iger, said he’s open to having talks with Gov. DeSantis as the state of Florida is important to the company.
“I do not view this as a going-to-mattresses situation for us,” Igor said in an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday, using a phrase popularized by The Godfather that means going to war. Iger added that he would be willing to have a sit down with DeSantis. “If the governor of Florida wants to meet with me to discuss all of this, of course, I would be glad to do that.”
The 72-year-old CEO added that he has always respected elected officials, and this case was no different.
Disney and Gov. DeSantis have sparred for months over the company’s self-governing district which gave it a special tax status and other benefits regarding new construction and medical services. The arrangement, which has been in place since 1967, saved the company millions of dollars over the years.
Although tension has been brewing for a year now, Florida and Disney are deeply intertwined. Iger took care to highlight how Disney World has 75,000 employees, and welcomes millions of tourists in its theme parks near Orlando every year.
“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,” Iger said. “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.”
Disney and representatives of DeSantis did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.
The Disney-DeSantis tussle
The feud between Disney and DeSantis began about a year ago. DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill last March, which is being considered in a number of other states like Texas, Arizona and Alabama. Disney, led by Chapek at the time, kept its silence on the bill and was met with backlash from employees and fans, some of whom belonged to the LGBTQIA+ community. Days later, Chapek issued an apology and ultimately opposed the bill (Iger did, too)—a move that didn’t bode well with DeSantis, who called the company “Woke Disney.”
The Republican governor decided to revoke the special tax status that Disney had enjoyed for decades. There was just one hiccup—if Disney was stripped off its self-governing status, residents in Florida’s Orange County and Osceola regions would have to share the financial burden of some services offered in Disney World, like fire services and policing, and its $1 billion debt bill. So DeSantis left the district’s financial and debt aspect untouched and instead took control by appointing five board members to make decisions for Disney World instead of the company itself.
“Today the corporate kingdom finally comes to an end,” DeSantis said in February when the bill to remove Disney’s special status was signed. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and accountability will be the order of the day.”
But Disney pulled a fast one. The former board that controlled the Disney district gave its power back to the entertainment company by creating a very unusual development agreement for its outgoing board that stripped the new governor-appointed board of much of its power until the death of the “last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England.”
DeSantis is not the only problem Disney has been grappling with. Since Iger returned as the company’s CEO last November, the company had to face pressure from activist investor Nelson Peltz. In February, the company announced it would layoff 7,000 workers in three batches to reduce costs by $5.5 billion. Peltz dropped his proxy war with Disney after Iger announced steps to restructure the company and bring costs down, calling it a “win for all shareholders.”
Last month, top Marvel Entertainment executive Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, who backed Peltz in his fight for a board seat at Disney, was sacked from the company. Iger said that was a business decision made to improve how Marvel was being managed, and said it wasn’t done because of his support for Peltz.
“This decision would have been made regardless of that,” Iger told Time about Perlmutter’s firing. “This was a necessary step in the direction of us creating a more efficient company.”
