The Walt Disney Company recently saw its stock price noes dive after a billionaire investor dumped tens of millions of shares in the entertainment giant. Disney had enjoyed a substantial increase in share prices earlier in the year, reaching as high as $123 per share in April. However after the recent decline, the company’s stock price is just $91 per share.
The precipitous decline in market value follows actions from activist investor Ike Perlmutter, the former chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who engaged in a failed battle for seats on Disney’s board of directors last year. Perlmutter has been highly critical of Disney’s strategic direction, slamming leadership over issues such as the highly politicized content it is pushing on its audience.
According to reports, Perlmutter began selling his shares in the company between April and mid-July, unloading his stake of nearly 26 million shares valued at roughly $3 billion. However, the activist investor noted that if Disney’s share price fell within the range of $65 to $75, he would recover much of his prior stake.
In 2021, Disney enjoyed a significantly higher share price, close to $200, before the company decided to ramp up the politicization of its entertainment offerings, such as including alleged sexualized and gender-based themes in content targeted to children. Subsequently, Disney has faced numerous box office flops, and the company has lost hundreds of millions.
Earlier this year, The American Tribune reported that Disney lost nearly $900 million from its recent theatrical releases. Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly blasted the entertainment giant over the woke movie flops from titles such as “Elemental,” “Lightyear,” and “The Little Mermaid” that have cost the company.
“Apparently, there’s an analysis out there showing that films like Lightyear, in which they decided to make Buzz Lightyear gay. The Little Mermaid, which is now woke…elemental, that’s one of the ones that includes a non-binary character which has one of the worst openings ever. Worst opening weekend in company history. We could go down the list,” Kelly stated.
“The people are not buying this content. They don’t want this content,” the commentator continued, suggesting the political and social agendas packaged into the films are turning off audiences. Kelly further indicated that companies are beginning to realize that a woke agenda is unsuitable for business. “Bit by bit. All these media companies are eliminating and big, big tech companies are eliminating their heads of diversity because it’s just a wasted position where somebody just glorifies their wokeness and tries to lecture, so it’s failing,” she added.
However, Disney CEO Bob Iger previously addressed the controversy, maintaining that the company’s “number one priority” was to entertain its audience, not become involved in politics. “I’ve been preaching this for a long time at the company before I left and since I came back that our No. 1 goal is to entertain. I think, like, the term woke is thrown around rather liberally, no pun intended in that regard. I think a lot of people don’t even understand really what it means,” Iger said. “The bottom line is that infusing messaging as a sort of No. 1 priority in our films and TV shows is not what we’re up to. They need to be entertaining.”
Watch Kelly sound off on Disney below:
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