Former Marvel Entertainment Chairman Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter said in an interview published Tuesday that he told Disney executives to not “get involved in politics” before he was fired from the company.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Perlmutter said he has “no doubt” his firing “was based on fundamental differences in business between my thinking and Disney leadership.” Marvel Entertainment is a subsidiary of the Disney Company.
The former Marvel chairman said when Disney was battling with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, he told Disney executives to stay out of politics.
Former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter said “fundamental differences” led Disney to fire him. In a rare interview, he discusses relationships with Disney CEO Robert Iger, activist investor Nelson Peltz and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. https://t.co/uzKHkjMK6o
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 5, 2023
“Don’t get involved in politics,” Perlmutter said. “You’re going to get hurt. It’s a no-win situation.”
The former Disney executive also said he reached out to the governor and said “Ron, you’re right. Disney doesn’t have the right to get involved with politics.”
The company confirmed the Perlmutter was out in late March amid a wider spate of layoffs that cut 7,000 jobs.
In a lengthy statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Perlmutter said that he “long expected that my working relationship with Disney would end.”
“That it should come as a result of my trying to help Disney improve its business should sadden many shareholders as it does me, the company’s largest individual shareholder,” he added.
He also highlighted that his failed attempt to get activist investor Nelson Peltz on the Walt Disney Company’s board stemmed from his hopes to improve shareholder returns, not to try and shake things up on the board.
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“I believe he [Peltz] could have done the same for Disney as a member of its board,” Perlmutter said in the statement. “It’s a disappointment for me and I believe many fellow shareholders that he wasn’t welcomed to the board and that it took the threat of a proxy contest for the board and management to begin to act.”
“My ties to Disney are deep and extend more than 30 years,” he added. “The Marvel brand which I brought to the company in 2009 is now one of the strongest and most profitable business units in the company, as well as one of the best-known entertainment franchises in the world.”
Perlmutter closed out his statement by making it clear that, despite not being employed by the House of Mouse, he “will continue to advocate for actions that secure Disney’s long-term financial health and allow a new generation of management to reverse the trend of falling shareholder equity and return the dividend to its prior level.”
Perlmutter had been with the company for more than a decade after selling Marvel to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion, Deadline reported.
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Related: Fired Marvel Exec Slams Disney, Said She ‘Refused To Do Something She Believed Was Reprehensible’