Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Monday advised Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger to drop the company’s lawsuit against DeSantis and other state officials.
During an interview with CNBC’s Last Call, the governor was asked what he would say to Iger if they were to speak on the phone today.
“They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit,” DeSantis said. “So what I would say is, drop the lawsuit.”
Disney filed a lawsuit against DeSantis and other state leaders in April accusing them of participating in a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” against the company that began last year when Disney spoke out against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law.
Disney’s then-CEO, Bob Chapek, publicly criticized the bill, which prohibits the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools to students in kindergarten through third grade, and suspended political donations in Florida. DeSantis responded last year by signing a bill to strip Disney of its 56-year-old “independent special district” status, which had granted it the privilege of creating its own regulations, building codes, and other municipal services. While lawmakers decided against dissolving the district, they instead elected to give DeSantis the power to appoint the district’s board members.
Now, Disney is alleging in a 77-page lawsuit that state leaders have weaponized government power in “as clear a case of retaliation as this Court is ever likely to see.” The lawsuit comes after the DeSantis-appointed board, in an effort to transfer power from Disney to the state, voted to nullify two agreements that a previous Disney-controlled board had made.
The governor previously asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit in June. He argued that he and the secretary of Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity are “immune” from the litigation.
“We’ve appreciated working with them over the years, but I would just say go back to what you did well,” DeSantis said of Disney on Last Call. “I think it’s going to be the right business decision,” adding the state has “basically moved on.”
DeSantis, who is running for president, said Florida is a “great place to do business.”
“Your competitors all do very well here — Universal, SeaWorld — they have not had the same special privileges as you have,” DeSantis said he would tell Disney’s CEO.
“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, you know, to one special company at the exclusion of everybody else,” he said.