Disney, the largest entertainment company in the world, he announced which will abandon plans to build a nearly $900 million campus in the Orlando, Florida area near the popular amusement park. The campus was supposed to house around 2,000 employees. The company, which recently embarked on a cost-cutting process, said the decision hinged on economic issues, but second several newspapers could also depend on the ongoing clash with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The Walt Disney Company is Florida’s most influential private company, and Disney World attracts tens of millions of tourists each year. It directly employs approximately 70,000 employees, but the impact on the state’s economy is far greater. The clash between Disney and the Florida government began last year, during discussions for the bill informally called “Don’t say gay”, which among other things prohibits talking about orientation sexuality and gender identity in schools. Disney did not initially speak out against the law, but after receiving numerous criticisms and pressure from its employees in Florida, it apologized and suspended the donations it gives each year to politicians in the state, from both political sides.
After that, the Republicans and DeSantis had accused Disney of “taking advantage too long” of the privileges granted by the Florida government, of wanting to “govern the state”, as well as of wanting to carry out a program of “woke” ideology, a word that defined the attitude of those who were attentive and committed against social injustices but which today often has a derogatory and sarcastic connotation. For this reason, in April 2022, the local government had revoked the special tax status of Disney World.
More recently, through people he trusts, DeSantis took control of the board that manages the Reedy Creek Improvement District (since February, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District), one of the many special districts that exist in Florida and can manage their own territory. It was established in May 1967 to allow the Walt Disney Company to build an amusement park, Disney World, southwest of Orlando: for over fifty years it guaranteed Disney control of the territory, as well as tax rebates and subsidized loans for the development of services and infrastructures that could also be used by all residents and attract tourists.
The new board managed by people close to DeSantis has decided to cancel an ongoing tax agreement causing, and we are at the end of last April, a legal action by Disney in which some choices of the DeSantis administration are defined as a “political retaliation against the company”.