In an exit interview with the Financial Times, Bob Iger pulled back the curtain on the acquisition deals Disney chased but never closed during his time as CEO.
The former executive disclosed that Disney had James Bond and Twitter on its target list at different points and held internal discussions with Apple about a potential merger.
Iger stepped down from his second stint as Disney CEO in March and was succeeded by Josh D’Amaro. The interview offered an unusually candid account of the deals that drove Disney’s expansion and the ones that narrowly slipped away.
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Bob Iger’s Expansion Plans
Pixar was Iger’s top priority, and Disney acquired the studio in May 2006 for $7.4 billion. The deal changed the mood inside the company entirely. “It was like the clouds lifted and the sun started to shine again,” Iger said. The Pixar purchase also set the template for what came next.
Iger began drawing up a broader list of targets and pursued them methodically. “We put together a list of acquisition targets. Marvel was one, ‘Star Wars’ was another, and James Bond was one. We had a list, and I figured, let’s just tick them off and buy them all,” he said.
The Deals That Got Away
James Bond is the franchise Disney could not land. Amazon now owns the property, and Disney never managed to close a deal for it. Twitter came closer, with Iger revealing that Disney had active discussions about buying the platform.
Iger revealed to the Financial Times that he had been on the verge of buying the platform from its owner, Jack Dorsey, “at a very attractive price,” with the goal of turning it into a global distribution channel for Disney content.
He pulled back on the morning the deal was set to close, later admitting he grew concerned it would be “a horrible distraction” for the company. Elon Musk eventually bought Twitter and converted it into X.
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Disney And Apple Potential Merger
Iger first wrote in his 2019 memoir that he believed Disney and Apple would have “at least discussed the possibility” of merging “very seriously” if Steve Jobs “were still alive.” In the Financial Times interview, he went further and confirmed that actual conversations did take place.
The veteran media mogul described what a combined entity would have looked like, calling it “truly transformational and equal.”
Recounting how those talks concluded, the former Disney chief said, “We talked about it internally, and we had some conversations with Apple about it, but it never went anywhere.” He added plainly, “Apple didn’t show that much interest.“
Iger’s New Role
After leaving Disney in March and handing leadership to Josh D’Amaro, Iger took on an advisory role at Thrive Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm, with the news coming out in April.
Thrive Capital was founded in 2009 by Josh Kushner, the younger brother of Jared Kushner, who is Donald Trump‘s son-in-law. Iger first came on board at Thrive Capital as a venture partner in September 2022. The advisory role he picked up in April deepened a relationship that had already been in place for years.
