Palace coup: How Iger outmanoeuvred Chapek, returned to power at Disney

By James B Stewart & Brooks Barnes

At 5 pm on February 25, 2020, Bob Chapek and Bob Iger settled into matching directors’ chairs on the Disney studio lot for a series of live media interviews. The company had just shocked pretty much everybody by announcing that the little-known Chapek would be replacing the wildly popular  Iger as chief executive.

In an interview with Julia Boorstin of CNBC, Chapek fawned over his predecessor. “I obviously have huge shoes to fill,” he said with wide eyes, hailing Iger’s “magic” running Disney. Iger’s 15-year tenure as chief executive had been so successful that he had considered running for president as a Democrat. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him just before she died.
 

Iger said he and Chapek had worked together “extremely well,” but in the next breath qualified that praise: “Actually, our senior management team has worked together quite well.” Chapek listened in vain for something more effusive, more personal.
 

As the questions — and the attention — shifted entirely to Chapek, Iger’s usually relaxed demeanor stiffened. His gaze shifted down, away from Chapek, and he looked uncomfortable. He crossed his arms.
 

Chapek was intimately familiar with Iger’s body language and expressions. “This is not good,” he thought.
 

He was right about that. But little did he realise that he and Iger were about to face off in an epic corporate power struggle with few rivals in business history.
 

When Iger stepped down as chief executive — abruptly, just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic plunged Disney into the worst crisis in its history — the company’s board agreed that he could stay on as “creative director” and executive chairman of the board for another two years.
 

That agreement nearly fell apart over the issue of whom, exactly, Chapek would answer to: Iger or the board. A last-minute compromise, reached without a board vote, had Chapek reporting to both. That proved a recipe for conflict — as Chapek soon began to realise.

Just weeks into his tenure as chief executive, Chapek expressed frustration. “I can’t survive another two years of this,”Chapek told Arthur Bochner, his chief of staff. Iger is “not going to leave. He’ll be here until he dies.”
 

Bochner worried that Chapek would quit. Chapek was ultimately deprived of even that option. The board fired him just before Thanksgiving in 2022. As he had feared, his successor was Iger. The New York Times has pieced together what happened inside Disney during those fateful months by talking to scores of people directly involved.
 

Those problems have renewed importance now, as Disney embarks on yet another quest to find someone to succeed Iger, whose contract ends on December 31, 2026.

©2024 The New York Times News Service