Iger Exposes DeSantis' Lies About Disney in Earnings Call

Disney CEO Bob Iger pulled no punches while discussing Disney’s lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Disney’s recent earnings call.

This evening, Disney held their  Q2 FY23 Earnings Results call (meaning Quarter 2, Fiscal Year 2023) and live-streamed the audio on their company website. While not as Parks or content-focused as their recent Shareholders Call, where we learned more about Parks offerings and the upcoming Moana live-action remake, there was a lot of important information divulged about Disney’s past year and what the next could look like for the company.

Much was covered, including Disney+ ad-free subscription prices going up before the end of the year and an increase in revenue at the international Parks compared to a decrease at Walt Disney World. Disney pinned the revenue decrease on higher costs due in part to inflation, the new union contract with Disney Cast Members, and increased spending on new Guest offerings. We also heard about potential theme park expansions, although Iger did not delve into specifics.

However, it was during the Q&A portion when one caller asked the question everyone was thinking; what does Iger think about investing in Florida when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is waging political war with them?

Iger started off by stating that the company’s lawsuit, filed last month and updated this week, should make their position very clear and they continue to stand by everything that’s in the suit. “I think the case that we filed last month made our position and the facts very clear,” Iger said, “And that is really that this is about one thing and one thing only — and that is retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation. And we believe that in us taking that position we are merely exercising our right to free speech.”

He then continued to dig into DeSantis and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s claims of Disney abusing their special district privileges in order to avoid paying taxes. Iger rightfully pointed out that Reedy Creek Improvement District was far from the only special district in Florida.

“There are about 2000 special districts in Florida. Most are established to foster investor development where we were one of them… it is misleading to not also consider how much Disney benefited the state of Florida. And we are also, we are not the only company operating a special district. I mentioned 2000 for the Daytona Speedway, it has one. So do The Villages which is a permanent retirement community and there are countless others.”

“So the goal here is … if the goal is leveling the playing field in the uniform application of the law or government oversight of special districts needs to occur or be applied to all special districts. There’s also a false narrative that we have been fighting to protect tax breaks as part of this. But in fact we are the largest taxpayer in Central Florida paying over $1.1 billion in state and local taxes last year alone.”

“We pay more taxes, specifically more real estate taxes as a result of that special district. And we all know there was no concerted effort to do anything to dismantle what was once called Reedy Creek special district until we spoke out in the legislation. So this is plainly a matter of retaliation while the rest of the Florida special districts continue operating basically as they were.”

Iger noted that Disney’s current plans involve investing $17 billion into the state of Florida over the next ten years, which is exactly what the state government should want them to do. He added that Disney never wanted to be in the position of defending their business practices in federal court after having such a great relationship with the state of Florida for the past 50 years.

However, he ended with one final biting question.

“Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes or not?”