Disney Once Pushed for a ‘Transformational’ Merger With Apple
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One of the unusual and persistent corporate Apple rumors of the past two decades has been the idea that Apple might buy Disney. However, despite it being often raised by analysts and pundits over the years, there’s never been any solid indication that it was ever anything beyond mere speculation.
However, Disney’s former CEO, Bob Iger, recently revealed the idea was once legitimately on the table — although it wouldn’t have necessarily been done in the way that many expected.
This week, the Financial Times published a retrospective on Iger’s two-decade run as Disney’s chief executive, for which journalist Daniel Thomas sat down with Iger for several interviews in London and Los Angeles. As the two talked of many things that occurred during Iger’s reign over the House of Mouse, the executive candidly admitted that Apple was actually one of two big deals he was interested in that never happened.
According to Iger, there were what Thomas called “nascent talks” about a merger. This would not have been “Apple buying Disney” as the rumors often claimed, but rather something Iger described as “truly transformational and equal.”
“We talked about it internally, and we had some conversations with Apple about it, but it never went anywhere,” Iger told Thomas. When asked why not, he reportedly shrugged and said, “Apple didn’t show that much interest.”
The other deal Iger discussed would have been acquiring Twitter from Jack Dorsey “at a very attractive price.” While Iger didn’t say when that happened, it was likely around 2016, when Bloomberg reported a potential deal was in the works. Dorsey was also on Disney’s board at the time, which undoubtedly helped. The rumors from that era simply fizzled out and we never heard much more about it, but it turns out that Iger changed his mind on the morning of the deal, fearing that it would “a horrible distraction” from Disney’s core business.
The timing of Iger’s talks with Apple is considerably harder to pin down. Disney and Apple enjoyed a fascinating relationship as a result of the close friendship between Iger and Steve Jobs, whose terms as CEOs of their respective companies overlapped from 2005 until Jobs’ resignation and untimely death in 2011.
Jobs and Iger initially bonded over the idea of putting Disney content on the first video iPod, but the two became so close that Iger was one of the first people Jobs revealed his pancreatic cancer diagnosis to in 2006 — a time when only Jobs’ wife and doctors knew and nobody else would have even guessed. While Jobs’ reasons for that were largely professional — Disney was minutes away from acquiring Pixar — Iger’s compassionate response and commitment to keeping Jobs’ secret cemented their friendship.
Despite Jobs’ offer to let Iger back out, he proceeded with the deal anyway, and Jobs became the largest outside shareholder in the media giant’s history — second only to Walt Disney himself — making him the most influential member of Disney’s board of directors.
That script flipped in 2011. In August, Jobs handed over the reins of Apple to Tim Cook and returned to the head of the boardroom table — a position he hadn’t held since he had been ousted from Apple in 1985. Sadly, he would remain in that seat for only six weeks before succumbing to his cancer, after which Arthur Levinson was selected as the new chairman and Bob Iger joined Apple’s board at Jobs’ request.
Iger served on Apple’s board of directors for eight years, but formally resigned on September 10, 2019 — the same day the company officially launched the streaming service then known as Apple TV+. Disney has already announced plans for its own Disney+ streaming service, and while Iger said he didn’t believe it was a direct competitor to Apple and therefore planned to remain on Apple’s board, everyone involved likely decided it was far better to avoid even the appearance of a conflict, and the two companies amicably ended their 13-year boardroom relationship.
That shared history makes it easy to understand why rumors of an acquisition or merger have repeatedly surfaced over the years. While Iger’s idea of a merger between equals was likely from the Jobs or immediate post-Jobs era, today’s numbers tell a very different story. Disney may be a media powerhouse, but its $180 billion market valuation is dwarfed by $4.3 trillion market cap. If Apple had any interest in Disney whatsoever (and it’s pure wishful thinking to believe it does), such a deal might be a “merger” for optics’ sake, but it’s clear which company would be in the driver’s seat.
