If you poke the bear long enough, it will attack, or in this case, retract a financially lucrative opportunity. Amid its public feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Disney has confirmed it will no longer proceed with building a company campus in the state, one which would have added 2,000 fresh job opportunities to Florida residents.
The memo was announced to employees by the chairman of Disney parks, experiences, and products division, Josh D’Amaro, Thursday morning. According to NBC News, he cited “changing business conditions” as the reason behind the decision, adding, “This was not an easy decision to make, but I believe it is the right one.” Hmm, sounds fishy if you ask me.
The business venture was initiated back in 2021 under the direction of former CEO Bob Chapek; this was a year and a half before Bob Iger returned as CEO or DeSantis launched a vendetta against the House of Mouse. At the time, the announcement was met with varying levels of hesitancy from employees, who would have to undergo relocation. In fact, some Disney employees have already moved to Florida. Now that the initiative has been canned, D’Amaro is saying those employees “may” be eligible to move back to California, which — to an employee who already upended their life — doesn’t sound all that promising.
Although Disney’s home base is Burbank, California, the company operates out of several satellite locations throughout the country. Given the tumultuous state of affairs between Disney and DeSantis, the decision to cancel a Florida-based employee campus feels too timely to be coincidental, although at this time no correlation between the decision and the feud has been confirmed. Still, it could foreshadow a bleak direction the Disney/Florida relationship is headed in, especially given DeSantis is expected to officially enter the 2024 GOP presidential race next week.
Iger set the record straight not that long ago by doubling down on his beliefs that DeSantis is purposely launching a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” over Disney’s vocal opposition to his loosely-termed “Don’t Say Gay” bill. As such, the House of Mouse formally sued DeSantis and his hand-picked board members this past April.
Disney currently employs more than 75,000 people in Florida, making it the third-largest employer in the state and the highest-paying one at that – over Publix and Walmart. Despite the scrapped employee campus, Disney still plans to invest $17 billion in the state over the next 10 years. While the state of affairs between the company and the state grows murkier by the day, D’Amaro claims to be “optimistic about the direction of our Walt Disney World business.” That makes one of us…