Bob Iger’s Return “Ruining Disney,” CEO Slammed for “Self-Destructive Mission”

Disney CEO Bob Iger is making no new friends in his second stint at the helm of the Walt Disney Company with a tenure as fraught with controversy as can be.

The Walt Disney Company has been at the forefront of entertainment for decades now. Despite a journey filled with ups and downs over the years, the company has largely been successful in maintaining its hard-earned reputation as the ultimate American entertainment company that delivers family-friendly fun. However, Disney’s name has recently been congruous with controversy, and wagging tongues and pointing fingers indicate one culprit: Disney CEO Bob Iger.

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Bob Iger Returns to Disney to Save the Company After Chapek’s Tenure

In November 2022, former Disney CEO Bob Chapek was ousted from the company after he had repeatedly given shareholders and the board of directors cause to believe he was not fit to run the Walt Disney Company. The news of Chapek’s dismissal swept the community, and it seemed like everything happened incredibly quickly.

When Disney CEO Bob Iger returned, fans, shareholders, employees, and Cast Members seemed relieved to see the old chief executive back in his position. Iger had run Disney for 15 years before he retired. However, the relief at seeing him comeback has been shortlived, with critics now calling out Mr. Iger for being on a “self-destructive mission.”

Bob Iger Accused of “Ruining Disney”

Free Enterprise Project Director Scott Shepard recently explained how the formerly beloved CEO has ruined the Walt Disney Company, and “driven his once-robust entertainment colossus into the ground.”

Shepard explained, “[Iger] bought up great swathes of entertainment companies that had been successful in other hands” and then hired “openly, brazenly partisan creative executives, who pushed niche, boutique, leftwing, upper-middle/lower-upper-class urban obsessions into everything that Disney produced… Relatedly, these partisan producers and executives happily gave up opportunities that looked profitable and popular, if their niche obsessions weren’t fully incorporated.”

Shepard also held Mr. Iger responsible for the DeSantis-Disney feud. He opined that Bob Iger, “pretended to resign as CEO, but he kept his CEO’s office, and stayed right there on the premises, and interfered constantly in his ‘successor’s’ efforts. Part of that interference was to pressure the successor into picking a fight with the governor and government of the company’s second home state.”

Despite these criticisms, Bob Iger’s contract has been extended—when he first came back on, he was only meant to return through 2024. Irrespective of whether the community and his critics are happy about this, the board of directors seems confident in Mr. Iger’s ability to turn things around for Disney.