The Walt Disney Company has been known to make some brilliant maneuvers to get itself out of sticky situations, the most recent and ingenious example being the Reedy Creek loophole that is currently making headlines. It must therefore come as no surprise that Disney has some of the best and brightest minds in the country working for it, be that in the business and legal side of things or on the creative side with Walt Disney Imagineering. However, it turns out that a former Disney senior executive—the former longtime communications chief—has been more relevant to recent headlines than we previously realized.
Here’s the news.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew was helped for more than a month by former advisers of Barack Obama and the Walt Disney Company. Specifically, former longtime communications chief of the Walt Disney Company, Zenia Mucha, “are advising TikTok in its fight against efforts to ban it in the U.S.”
All three of these advisers helped coach TikTok CEO Shou Chew in preparation for his hearing that, as many will know, turned out to be one of the most contentious hearings the House had seen.
As some Disney Fanatics would know, Ms. Mucha had experience in both the political and corporate spheres, having advised Republican politicians in New York for many years prior to her 20-year-long career at the Walt Disney Company. During her time with Disney, she worked with Mr. Iger as his longtime lieutenant, advising him on matters ranging from “geopolitical matters to fan relations.” She was also very present for a lot of Disney’s expansion in China.
The focus of the hearing was the U.S. worrying that data was not safe in the hands of TikTok due to the possibility that the company “would share data on U.S. users with the Chinese government, or influence the content users see, based on the whims of the Chinese government. ”
As Mr Chew mentioned in the hearing and reported by WSJ, “TikTok has said it has never received such a request, and wouldn’t participate if asked, and that its platform allows free expression. It also has said it has spent about $1.5 billion to put a plan in place to separate U.S. users’ data, housing it with its American partner Oracle Corp.”