Exec Says There's "No Doubt" He Was Fired for Disagreeing with Disney Leadership

The Walt Disney Company is in the midst of some major layoffs right now. During a recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that thousands of jobs would be cut as the company works to cut costs.

©Disney | Walt Disney Company Headquarters

The layoffs began in late March 2023, and several executives lost their jobs as a result. Those job cuts have meant that an entire division of the company was eliminated, and a couple of major projects have been scrapped. Disney has stated that these job cuts are part of a huge effort to cut $5.5 billion in spending, but one Marvel executive claims that there’s a different reason why Disney fired him.

The Chairman of Marvel Entertainment, Isaac Perlmutter, was laid off as part of this recent wave of job cuts. But, according to Robbie Whelan of the Wall Street Journal, Perlmutter believes there’s a different reason why he lost his job. Perlmutter believes he was fired “because he pushed Disney too aggressively to cut costs and ran afoul of the creative executives whom newly returned Chief Executive Robert Iger wants to empower.”

©Susan Walsh/Associated Press via The New York Times

Bob Iger stated in a previous earnings call that Disney is being reorganized in order to “return greater authority to [its] creative leaders.” This restructuring is meant to “re-establish a direct link between content decisions and financial performance” because the creative leaders will be given more authority to make decisions and more accountability for the results of those choices.

At the time, Iger stressed that the reorganization will provide “a more cost-effective, coordinated and streamlined approach” to the company’s operations. It seems that Perlmutter must have come into some conflict with those creatives, and he believes that is the reason he was fired.

©Disney

Apparently, Perlmutter was not afraid of disagreeing with other Disney executives. He told the Wall Street Journal that, during Disney’s battles with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, he called DeSantis and said, “Ron, you’re right. Disney doesn’t have the right to get involved with politics.” By contrast, Iger has defended the company’s stance and right to comment on political matters on multiple occasions.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ©Deadline

Perlmutter also sided with activist investor Nelson Peltz when Peltz was running a proxy battle against Disney. Though not officially involved in the proxy battle, he called the Disney directors and asked them to add Peltz to the Board of Directors. Perlmutter said, “My experience with any major corporation, when they’re having problems and they don’t have the free cash or whatever it is, usually people like Nelson Peltz know how to put it back on track.” He went on to say, “I learned one thing about creative people my whole life: You cannot give them an open credit card.… They’re doing this for 30 years, why would they change?”

©Reuters

Perlmutter said, “I have no doubt that my termination was based on fundamental differences in business between my thinking and Disney leadership, because I care about return on investment.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that the former executive frequently “raised concerns with then-CEO Mr. Chapek about what he viewed as out-of-control spending on Marvel movies.” Perlmutter claims that Chapek agreed with him but was unable to change the plan since the spending had already been approved by others. “There was no way to force the issue,” said Perlmutter, “because the creative people at the Walt Disney Company are very powerful.”

A Disney representative has stated that Perlmutter was terminated “as part of the company’s broader effort to cut $5.5 billion from its content and administrative budgets and eliminate 7,000 jobs.” Perlmutter claims he does not remember being told this. Instead, he said that the termination “was merely a convenient excuse to get rid of a longtime executive who dared to challenge the company’s way of doing business.”

We’ll continue to watch for more updates from Disney, so stay tuned for all the latest news.