From the BBC:
“Disney scraps $867m Florida plan amid Ron DeSantis feud”
The Walt Disney Company has scrapped a plan to invest nearly
$1bn (£806m) to build a new corporate campus in Florida, it announced. The reversal
comes amid an escalating feud between the entertainment giant and the state's
Republican-led government headed by Ron DeSantis. The plan would have seen
about 2,000 employees relocate to a Disney-owned town centre at Lake Nona, near
Orlando. Disney and Florida have both sued each other in recent weeks. The
cancellation was announced in an internal email to employees, including some
who had relocated to Florida ahead of the campus' opening, on Thursday.
The Lake Nona initiative had previously been driven by former
CEO Bob Chapek, who was fired by Disney in November. In the internal email -
seen by BBC News - Josh D'Amaro, the head of Disney's Parks, Experiences and
Products division, said the company's decision was the result of
"considerable changes" that have taken place since it was first
announced, including "new leadership and changing business
conditions". "This was not an easy decision to make, but I believe it
is the right one," Mr D'Amaro wrote.
Plans for the Lake Nona campus included moving employees
belonging to Disney Imagineering - the firm's secretive research and
development arm focused on park design - from California to Florida. Mr D'Amaro's
email said that Disney will no longer ask employees to move and will discuss
next steps with those who have already done so. Many of the jobs that were
supposed to relocate to Florida were higher paid, white collar and tech-focused
positions. The Orlando Business Journal reported that the average annual wage
for the positions was $120,000 - a potentially lucrative group of new residents
that would have boosted Orlando's economy.
After Mr Chapek's departure last year, his predecessor and
replacement as chief executive, Bob Iger, announced sweeping changes aimed at
boosting its profitability and helping it survive as its traditional movie and
television business declines, and as new offerings, such as streaming, remain
loss making. He has reorganised operations and announced roughly 7,000 job cuts
in pursuit of more than $5bn in savings.
The "changes" alluded to in Mr D'Amaro's email also
including mounting tensions between Disney and Florida's government led by Mr
DeSantis. The BBC has contacted Mr DeSantis' office. The relationship between
Disney and Florida - where it is the largest single-site employer - began
deteriorating last year after Mr DeSantis condemned the company for opposing a
same-sex education bill.
^ This seems like both a cost-saving move by Disney and a
huge F-U to DeSantis. I hope Florida wakes up and puts DeSantis in his place in
his weird power-play against Disney. ^
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