Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been battling over the takeover of Disney’s special Reedy Creek Improvement District, now called the Central Florida Tourism Oversite District. Disney has since filed lawsuits against the governor, members of the new district board, and other political officials over the loss of their special privileges that reportedly even allowed for their own nuclear power plant. Disney is also suing over retaliation claims due to their pushback on the Parental Rights in Education Bill (aka Don’t Say Gay Bill.) Now the governor is telling them to drop it and move on.
In a CNBC interview, the Florida governor says he’s moved on and thinks that Disney CEO Bob Iger should drop the lawsuits and focus on their business instead.
Here’s what he said:
“I would just say go back to what you did well. I think it’s going to be the right business decision. We’ve basically moved on. They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit. So what I would say is drop the lawsuit.”
Lately, Disney has not been faring well. The company’s stocks are staying low; their films are not performing well, Disney+ is losing subscribers, and park attendance at the Walt Disney World Resort is down.
While Bob Iger tried to leverage an alleged $17 billion investment into the Florida theme park and then canceled the Lake Nona Project (which looked to be heading for cancelation before Iger tried to say it was over DeSantis), Disney seemingly doesn’t have $17 billion to invest right now anyway.
DeSantis continued, stating that Disney has the same privileges its competitors now have, and they are doing well.
“Your competitors all do very well — here at Universal SeaWorld, they have not had the same special privileges as you have. So all we want to do is treat everybody the same and let’s move forward. I’m totally fine with that. But I’m not fine with giving extraordinary privileges to one special company at the exclusion of everybody else.”
The Walt Disney Company did enjoy a special district that its competitors did not have. It gave the company the same power that a city would have instead of a theme park within a city. Universal Orlando, Sea World, etc., were not given the same privileges, and DeSantis argues that all the state did was put Disney on the same level as everyone else. This should have been done years ago, as now it appears it was only done to punish the company for challenging the state.
Disney has yet to drop the lawsuit.
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
Source: Fox
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