After argument with DeSantis
Disney halts plans for Florida employee complex
05/19/2023 01:09 am
To provide Disney World employees with a place to stay in Florida, Disney wanted to build an employee complex in Orlando. But amid a dispute with Florida’s Gov. DeSantis, the entertainment group canceled the project, citing “changing business conditions.”
Amid a bitter row with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entertainment giant Disney has scrapped plans to build a major new employee complex in the US state. In the face of “significant changes,” including “changing business conditions,” the Orlando-area project is being abandoned, Disney Theme Parks chief executive Josh D’Amaro said in a memo to employees. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but I think it’s the right one.”
Disney actually wanted to build a new so-called campus in Orlando’s Lake Nona district, not far from the Disney World amusement park. There, 2,000 employees from the state of California, where Disney has its headquarters, should be sent to live and work. The project was not without controversy, partly because some employees did not want to move from California to Florida.
D’Amaro now announced the end of the project. In addition to the “changing business conditions”, he also referred to the change at the top of the entertainment giant. In November, longtime Disney boss Bob Iger returned to the helm of the company, replacing his successor Bob Chapek.
Don’t Say Gay Law
The cancellation of the campus project comes amid a heated argument with Gov. DeSantis over a Florida law that has been criticized as anti-gay. The ultra-conservative politician and potential presidential candidate passed a law last year that bans teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in the first three years of elementary school. Critics refer to the law, which has since been extended to all grades, as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Then-Disney boss Chapek also criticized the law last year, halting all his company’s political donations in Florida. DeSantis reacted angrily – and had Florida’s parliament pass a law that severely restricted the self-governing status of “Disney World”. In the dispute, Disney went to court in April and sued DeSantis.
The Republican governor is taking a sharply right-wing course in Florida and is attacking, among other things, an alleged left-wing “woke” ideology among Democrats, institutions and companies. Observers expect the 44-year-old to announce his entry into the presidential race next week.
DeSantis is considered the most dangerous inner-party rival of ex-President Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential candidacy for the 2024 election. In polls, however, Trump is far ahead of DeSantis.