The Walt Disney Company has announced a cash payout for shareholders in the form of a stock dividend for the first time in years, despite the company having lost tens of millions of dollars over allegedly “woke” content.

While Disney remains one of the world’s largest and most powerful media corporations, it is no secret that it has been financially struggling in the last several years. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down Walt Disney World and Disneyland for months at a time, causing historically huge revenue losses for the company and diminished park attendance that it has yet to make up.
At the same time, the company has suffered a nearly unprecedented series of flops at the box office, much of it blamed on the company’s supposed “woke agenda.” Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, which were very recently the closest thing to a guaranteed box-office hit, have been severely underperforming: Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania both failed to crack the much-desired billion-dollar mark, and The Marvels flopped so hard that it broke records for the studio.

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Pixar Animation Studios has been struggling to produce a movie that connects with audiences in the same way as Toy Story (1995) or Monsters, Inc. (2001), with chief Pete Docter admitting that the studio needs to go back to its roots.
Lucasfilm has not produced a theatrical Star Wars film since 2019, and the final Indiana Jones movie arrived in theaters to dismal reviews and, more importantly, receipts. Disney’s newest animated feature film, Wish, has been promoted as a centennial celebration of the iconic company but is already being viewed as a commercial and critical disappointment.

At the same time, the Disney+ streaming service is losing millions of dollars every financial quarter, and the company is embroiled in a costly legal battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the First Amendment and the tax district where Walt Disney World is located.
Although many factors are surely at play as to why the Walt Disney Company is struggling financially, Disney CEO Bob Iger has expressed his belief that the “woke” politics and focus on messages in storytelling over entertainment have hurt the company. Despite all those millions lost, it seems that Disney is still doing well enough to announce a cash dividend for the first time in years, meaning stockholders will receive cash payments for every share they own.
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The official Walt Disney Company statement reads, “The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) Board of Directors today announced a cash dividend of $0.30 per share in respect of the second half of fiscal year 2023, payable January 10, 2024 to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 11, 2023.”

This is the first cash dividend since 2020, when the company suspended the policy. Notably, the May 2020 cash dividend was priced at $0.88 per share, demonstrating a significant drop in the company’s financial fortunes since then.
This will likely make many shareholders happy, even if Disney employees continue to fight for fair wages and Park Guests complain about skyrocketing costs. It turns out that “go woke, go broke” may not apply to shareholders of a company.
Do you think “woke” content is causing Disney to lose money? Tell us in the comments below!