Bob Chapek vs. Bob Iger is back, baby! The latest development is that this saga almost played out in an actual courtroom and not just via palace intrigue in Hollywood and financial media. This article shares some interesting anecdotes from Disney’s Bob Swap™️ and the Battle of the Bobs via lengthy article that documents how the drama unfolded thanks to new interviews with the Bobs’ colleagues, friends, and spokespeople.
This is the the first there have been any major new developments in all of this in over a year–one year and two days, to be exact. It’s the second time we’ve truly been treated to Chapek’s version of events in this whole sordid affair, making for an interesting and less one-sided summary.
If you’ve just joined Bob vs. Bob already in progress, you’re in for a treat. We aren’t going to recap everything that has transpired, but here’s a quick refresher. After being named CEO in early 2020, Disney Fired CEO Bob Chapek and Rehired Bob Iger as CEO back in November 2022. That article recapped this saga dating back to 2020 and covered why we weren’t surprised by this development.
There were a lot of subsequent developments in the Battle of the Bobs that trickled out over the course of the last two years, but the Disney drama had been colored by Bob Iger bias. It was obvious that the Iger camp was providing background, while Chapek kept pretty much completely silent.
That is, until around this time last year when news “broke” that Bob Chapek Claimed Being Disney CEO Was 3 Years of Hell, But He Pet a Hippo. That was very clearly written in coordination with the Chapek camp, and frankly, it still made him look incompetent. Sure, it also made Bob Iger look bad, but it was kind of remarkable that this was the best Chapek had as his rebuttal in the smear campaign.
It turns out that it wasn’t. The new-for-September 2024 piece in the New York Times is the lengthiest, most comprehensive, and pro-Chapek piece to date. The whole saga has been equal parts Succession and Game of Thrones…or a sequel to DisneyWar. Oh, and this particular NYT piece has a byline from the author of DisneyWar!
I found the latest long read, The Palace Coup at the Magic Kingdom, to be very fascinating and highly engaging. If you’re new to this saga, you’re in for a treat–and are better off reading that than this post. Just being honest–James Stewart and Brooks Barnes can write circles around me.
However, if you are not new to this, fair warning–it has about 95% overlap with the hippo piece from this same time last year. Given that and since this is like our 23rd article on the Battle of the Bobs, I’m going to cut to the chase and focus on a few of the most fascinating revelations.
It makes sense to start at the beginning, which is that the article reiterates the Chapek being chosen as Iger’s successor and the accelerated plan for him to take the helm as CEO began in December 2019, was cemented in January 2020, and had nothing to do with COVID.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe this. Both Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland closed in January 2020–one full month before the abrupt announcement that Iger was stepping down, effective immediately, to be replaced by Bob Chapek. The notion that Iger would leave the helm with so much unfinished business, without an externality just strains credulity. Iger is all about his legacy and stepping away in early 2020 makes absolutely no sense from that perspective, but for COVID.
As we’ve maintained since the beginning, Iger saw the writing on the wall in early 2020. Articles with inside info from 2020 and 2021 make obvious that Iger didn’t really want to retire, and wouldn’t have but for COVID. Chapek was chosen as a matter of expediency–to be the hatchet man who made unpopular and tough decisions to get the Walt Disney Company through a tough time before the triumphant return of Iger.
I believe Iger, Chapek, and the board had talks about succession in 2019. Sure, why not. Iger talked about that a lot. But given everything we know about Iger and potential successors over the years, it’s curious that this is just accepted by the media as how things unfolded. Whether Chapek was set up as a fall guy or a witting and willing participant in the process is more of an open question.
Aside from this, there are a lot more anti-Iger statements and color commentary in the latest piece, which is likely aimed at better balance. From previous reporting, we already knew that Bob Chapek viewed his tenure at Disney as “three years of hell,” defined by one overriding theme: frequent fear that Iger wanted his job back.
This reiterates that, while also adding background to the drama and backstabbing that played out between the Bobs, and how the board acted as an intermediary. The general sense of that is Chapek was told to be deferential to Iger at first given his experience and relationships, but over time, the board became more sympathetic to Chapek. At least, until they weren’t.
None of this is going to surprise anyone who has paid any degree of attention to this saga. It’s all entirely believable, and exactly what you’d expect given what has come out previously. Some of this makes Iger look bad–petty, vindictive, and unable to cede his grasp on the throne. It actually makes us mildly sympathetic to Chapek!
In other cases, Iger being hands on and taking the wheel, so to speak, is entirely expected given Chapek’s lack of experience and his many unforced errors. Despite this being a lengthy article, there’s so much that’s been covered elsewhere that’s glossed over quickly here–the Cast Member furloughs and price increases, in particular, come to mind as disputes over which Iger was 100% correct and vindicated on almost immediately. If anything, perhaps Iger should’ve been more assertive and hands on.
There are also things for which Chapek is unfairly maligned. The big one is Disney’s streaming losses. It was always the plan for Disney+ to lose money as it chased subscriber numbers and growth over profitability. Chapek doubled down on this at the behest of Wall Street, and when he had no other options while the parks were closed and streaming subscriptions were exploding.
It was absolutely the right move at the time, and one that was rewarded by Wall Street…until it wasn’t. Anyone who was harsh about those billion-dollar streaming losses in 2022 either fundamentally misunderstood what was happening, or did understand, but had unfairly moved the goalposts.
That was just one of several Chapek-era decisions that has been unfairly vilified. He was forced to make a lot of tough and unpopular decisions because those were the only cards he had to play. Admittedly, I didn’t like a lot of those as a fan, but understood them given the circumstances. But in the end, Chapek also made it very difficult to defend those decisions because he did such an abysmal job of that himself. His terrible messaging was a liability on several occasions, and he had a knack for making a bad situation somehow worse.
One of the biggest tidbits from the NYT piece is that Chapek hired Bryan Freedman, a lawyer in Los Angeles known for handling high-profile media departures, after he was fired by Disney. Mr. Freedman advised Chapek that he had “a very strong legal claim against Bob Iger for illegally interfering with his ability to do his job.”
However, Chapek told the attorney that his children and grandchildren were a “Disney family” and he couldn’t bring himself to file a lawsuit that might hurt the company, according to Mr. Freedman.
The article also indicates that Chapek has felt “muzzled by a severance agreement” and stayed in the background in the face of what he considers unflattering, unfair and, in some cases, inaccurate accounts of his leadership. Though Chapek joined the board of a medical technology firm, the article indicates that few other opportunities have come his way.
I don’t doubt that Chapek hired an attorney or feels that way. A couple of things, though. First, there’s probably more to the story. If I hire an attorney and ultimately don’t pursue legal action, of course my attorney is going to offer a face-saving statement on my behalf. An attorney that publicly bad-mouths their own clients is an attorney who doesn’t get much future work.
Not only that, but you don’t hire an attorney to evaluate potential legal recourse if you have zero intentions of doing anything. It’s not like some ambulance chaser propositioned Chapek out of the blue and he shut it down with an admirable, “no, we’re a Disney family, I can’t hurt the company I love even if it hates me.” This was a calculated decision made by Chapek after measured deliberation, evaluation, and guidance. (Hard to believe Chapek did any of those things given his track record for the exact opposite at Disney, but being fired and publicly humiliated has a way of humbling a man.)
More likely, Chapek was advised that he had a potential case but that there was a decent probability that he would not prevail. That it would be costly, play out in highly visible fashion in the press, and further illuminate his many mistakes as CEO. That he would again be outmaneuvered by media-savvy Iger at every turn. That it would be difficult for the career of his son, who is a producer at Marvel. Pretty easy decision not to sue from that perspective.
Then again, maybe the explanation is far simpler: Chapek signed up for a Disney+ trial and can’t sue!
As for Chapek feeling muzzled, it’s very difficult to take that claim seriously given that the two biggest articles in the Battle of the Bobs in the last 367 days have clearly had more involvement from his camp than Iger’s. If Chapek doesn’t like the way he’s portrayed in the media, he should look no further than in the mirror. This is Chapek being portrayed in the most flattering light, and it’s still pretty bad. For good reason, as his tenure as CEO was a trainwreck!
Again, I do feel slight sympathy for Chapek. He was not set up for success, and was thrown headfirst into a situation that would’ve been difficult for even a skilled and experienced executive. Having Iger breathe down his neck only exacerbated this. Maybe things would’ve played out differently if Iger didn’t step down in 2020, but instead stayed through the storm, began the succession process then, and left the company in early 2022.
Personally, I think the process would’ve been the different–and much better–but the end result still would’ve been the same. Chapek would not have been CEO by the end of 2022. Because he never would’ve been chosen as CEO in the first place; Bob Iger would’ve realized the error of his ways and chosen someone else were he not in such a rush to name a successor in early 2020.
A couple of random tidbits from the article. It confirms that Iger demanded former CFO Christine McCarthy’s resignation. Disney’s official line when this happened was that she was taking medical leave, but we speculated that she was being forced out.
Another item of interest: Josh D’Amaro’s name doesn’t appear in the article at all. It’s probably good for his future prospects that he’s not swept up in this drama, but it’s also interesting that one of the heads running an instrumental division during this timeframe didn’t merit even a passing mention. The parks come up a lot, but D’Amaro, not at all.
There’s also more color commentary that cements Iger choosing Chapek as his successor as the “worst mistake” of his career. There’s one March 2020 anecdote of Chapek sitting by himself on the company jet away from everyone else during what should’ve been a briefing. It culminates in this: “Mr. Iger suddenly felt as if he were at the wedding altar with the bride walking down the aisle. He realized he’d made a terrible mistake. But it was too late.”
It’s obvious that Iger had buyer’s remorse with Chapek. However, it’s also clear that he was a known quantity! Both Bobs knew that Chapek lacked Iger’s charisma and wasn’t a natural communicator. Even Chapek acknowledged that he had low “E.Q.,” or emotional intelligence. Iger urged him to work on this, and suggested he schedule one-on-ones with the board to develop rapport and lay out his vision for the future of Disney.
One of my favorite lines from the entire NYT piece is actually a photo caption: “Mr. Chapek frequently told associates that he had low ‘E.Q.,’ or emotional intelligence. To come across as more personable, he interacted more frequently with theme park guests and petted a hippo.”
There’s just something slightly absurd yet perfect about the CEO of one of America’s most iconic and public-facing companies openly admitting this and then trying to address the issue in those ways. A real chef’s kiss caption.
Suffice to say, it’s difficult to believe that Iger didn’t know exactly what he was getting with Bob Chapek. It feels like an eternity ago, but Bob Chapek was well-known among Disney theme park fans and was widely disliked even before 2020. This is despite Chapek presiding over Parks & Resorts during an era of expansion. This is notably at odds with fan response to other executives–Bob Iger was beloved at the time, as were the individual resort complex presidents and park VPs.
Some of this can be hand-waved away as fans having an outsider view of the company, and viewing things in simplistic and reductionist terms. It’s easy for fans to view things as a good/bad dichotomy, and executives as heroes and villains. But honestly, that’s kinda the point here. We all saw that Chapek lacked emotional intelligence, charisma and charm.
This is also why it’s tough to be sympathetic towards Bob Chapek. I’m not going to belabor the incalculable x-factors he lacked here, as that’s something he previously discussed at length in Bob Chapek Did Not “Get” Disney. However, I will add that it wasn’t simply superficial. There are many other reasons, including substantive stories about Chapek’s shortcomings and mistakes even before he became CEO.
All of this is the basis for our long held negative opinion of Chapek. Although he seemed to relish insulting and antagonizing fans, there are also valid bases for the differences in how Iger, D’Amaro, and other members of Disney leadership are perceived as contrasted with Chapek. It’s not merely a matter of them being better at manicuring their public image and Chapek not caring.
It’s also difficult to feel too badly for Bob Chapek given the damage he inflicted on Disney and its fans, some of which has since been undone but a lot of which never will be. There’s also the fact that Chapek was paid $20 million in severance to go kick rocks. (Money well spent by Disney, if you ask me!)
As for the NYT piece, an unfortunate amount of this reads as middle school drama–the juvenile nicknames, needless jabs, and all of the gossip. It’s difficult to walk away with anything but the sense that everyone here sucks. It will probably make you respect the Walt Disney Company and its leadership over the last ~5 years a little (or a lot) less. That’s one fairly unavoidable conclusion.
With that said, there are two paragraphs that stand out to me towards the end. The first is about Chapek: “At the same time, he certainly contributed to his own demise. Soon after he was named chief executive, he stopped ingratiating himself with Mr. Iger. And, by the end, nearly his entire executive team had turned against him, even people he’d hired and promoted. So did the board — not just Ms. Catz, skeptical of him from the outset, but also Ms. Arnold, once his strongest defender.”
Contrast with this, about Iger: “Current Disney executives say Mr. Iger has restored morale and brought needed stability to the management ranks…Mr. Iger was greeted by fans with delirious applause when he appeared onstage at this summer’s D23 fan gathering in Anaheim, Calif. Mr. Iger was so moved that he had to fight back tears before speaking.”
Ultimately, that’s the most insightful part of this for me–and it’s practically glossed over: even Chapek’s own people turned against him by the end. As we pointed out back when Chapek was fired, there was a tremendous top-to-bottom improvement in employee morale at the Walt Disney Company when Bob Iger returned. The biggest difference between the two Bobs is in leadership, and that is paramount to setting the tone at a creative company like Disney.
The NYT piece is an exceptional long-read, but it doesn’t change anything. It just adds anecdotes and reiterates that there are no heroes or villains here. Neither Iger nor Chapek are totally to blame or are totally blameless. Even after hearing Chapek’s side of the story and feeling ever-so-slightly sorry for him, I’m still firmly on Iger’s side and am very glad that he returned.
I maintain that Iger was and is the only one that could navigate the Walt Disney Company through the rough waters of the last few years–and that he should’ve stayed through the pandemic. But I’m also ready to see him go. Bob Iger is a hero turned arsonist turned firefighter. I hope he gets his happy ending and emerges as a hero once more–because I’m a Disney fan and the alternative means something awful for the company. Beyond that, it’s time to turn the page and for fresh blood and new leadership.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on Chapek not suing Iger or the company because he’s part of a “Disney family”? Do you feel more sympathetic to Chapek now? Anything to add about the timeline and events that precipitated Disney’s Bob Swap™️, replacing Chapek with Iger? What about anything else covered here? Agree or disagree with the firing of Chapek? Hearing your perspective–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
