LISTEN: Disney CEO Bob Iger Blasts DeSantis for ‘False Narrative,’ Issues Not-So-Veiled Threat to Rethink Plans to Invest $17 Billion in Florida

Photo by Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images).

Disney CEO Bob Iger blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a call with investors this week, issuing a warning that the governor’s bitter feud with the company may result in the House of Mouse rethinking its plans to invest billions of dollars in the state.

This increasingly bizarre mess started just over a year ago, with a milquetoast press release issued by the then-CEO Bob Chapek regarding the Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed. Many other companies criticized the legislation in far harsher terms before it passed, and Disney didn’t actually do anything about the bill after that press release, but it was enough to trigger DeSantis’ ire.

What soon followed was a series of bills passed by the Florida Legislature at DeSantis’ direction, as he himself bragged in his book, that initially attempted to repeal the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), Disney’s special taxing district, outright, and then left RCID’s core structure intact, renamed it the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), and took the authority to appoint the board members away from the Disney-affiliated landowners and gave that power to the governor.

It is important to note that RCID was not unique and not a tax break, contrary to misperceptions encouraged by DeSantis. There are over 1,800 special taxing districts in Florida, all passed with the consent of the district landowners in order to pay extra taxes for a designated purpose. RCID’s most recent annual budget was roughly $160 million in additional taxes that Disney pays to cover a vast array of services and infrastructure ranging from trash and recycling, landscaping, road and transportation construction and maintenance, fire and emergency services, water and sewer treatment, wetlands mitigation and other environmental protection, etc. Those extra taxes are paid to RCID in addition to the regular property taxes Disney pays to Orange and Osceola County, all while Disney does not ask the counties to provide many of the services.

Add in the enormous impact that Disney has had for decades drawing tourists to Florida, all of whom contribute to sales taxes, gas taxes, Tourist Development Taxes, and so on while they are here, plus the tens of thousands of “cast members” it employs directly and the many more employed in related businesses, and the Mouse’s financial impact on Florida is absolutely monumental.

That’s a large part of why many observers have been shocked at the intensity and fury with which DeSantis is targeting Disney. The company’s lawyers noted this multiple times in the lawsuit filed against the governor and the puppet board members he appointed to CFTOD, pointing out the clearly retaliatory intent in comments by DeSantis and his allies and the fact that none of the hundreds of other special taxing districts in the state were being attacked this way.

During Disney’s Q2 earnings call with investors Wednesday, Iger was asked about the status of the litigation and overall dispute, and the CEO launched into a detailed evisceration of DeSantis’ “retaliation” and ended his comment with perhaps the sharpest threat yet of what consequences the governor’s battle could bring.

Multiple media outlets reported on Iger’s comments and an audio recording can be heard in the below tweet from Scott Gustin:

A transcript:

Regarding Florida, I have got a few things I want to say about that…First of all, the case that we filed last month made our position and the facts very clear. This is about one thing and one thing only — and that’s 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. Also, this is not about special privileges, or a level playing field, or Disney in any way using its leverage around the state of Florida.

But since there’s been a lot said about special districts and the arrangement that we had, I want to set the record straight on that, too. There are about 2,000 special districts in Florida, and most were established to foster investment in development. We were one of them. It basically made it easier for us, and others by the way, to do business in Florida. And we built a business that employs, as we’ve said before, over 75,000 people and attracts tens of millions of people to the state. So while it’s easy to say that the Reedy Creek special district, which was established for us over 50 years ago, benefited us, it’s misleading to not also consider how much Disney benefited the state of Florida. And we’re not the only company operating a special district. I mentioned the Daytona Speedway has one, a prominent retirement community The Villages, and there are countless others. So if the goal here is leveling the playing field and the uniform application of the law, government oversight of special districts needs to occur or be applied to all special districts.

There’s also a false narrative that we’ve been fighting to protect tax breaks. But in fact, we’re the largest taxpayer in Central Florida, paying over $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 on the legislation. So this is plainly a matter of retaliation, while the rest of the Florida special districts continue operating basically as they were. I think it’s also important for us to say our primary goal has always been to be able to continue to do exactly what we’ve been doing there, which is investing in Florida. We’re proud of the tourism industry that we created and we want to continue delivering the best possible experience for guests going forward.

We never wanted, and we certainly never expected, to be in the position of having to defend our business interests in federal court, particularly having such a terrific relationship with the state as we’ve had for more than 50 years. And as I mentioned on our shareholder call, we have a huge opportunity to continue to invest in Florida. I noted that our plans are to invest $17 billion over the next 10 years, which is what the state should want us to do. We operate responsibly. We pay our fair share of taxes. We employ thousands of people and, by the way, we pay them substantially above the minimum wage dictated by the state of Florida. We also provide them with great benefits and free education. So I’m going to finish what is obviously kind of a long answer by asking one question: Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes, or not?

Fortune reporter Christiaan Hetzner viewed that last question by Iger as a “thinly veiled threat” to “rethink plans” to make that planned $17 billion investment in Florida, writing that the CEO was “essentially daring DeSantis to sacrifice thousands of jobs and billions in future tax revenue for his state on the altar of his own personal political ambitions.”

Various political figures and commentators who have suggested that Disney abandon Florida and move to another state are not being realistic; few places offer the year-round sunshine that made Central Florida so attractive to Walt Disney in the first place and Spaceship Earth isn’t easily packed into shipping crates. The threat of pausing or dialing back future investment in the state, however, is far more plausible.

This wasn’t Iger’s first verbal salvo fired against DeSantis. Last month he told the Los Angeles Times that what the governor was doing “sounds not just anti-business, but it sounds anti-Florida.”