Bob Iger had been out of Walt Disney Co. for nearly a year, but as most people around him knew, he had never really let go. Acting almost as a shadow CEO, he had undermined his successor and provided an ear for unhappy Disney executives, some of whom he had mentored.
When the call to return as chief executive came, it was from someone on his old team. Mr. Iger later told people he had an inkling of how the script would go. …
The former Disney chairman and CEO, who ran the company for 15 years, stuck around long after Mr. Chapek assumed the top job in February 2020. That Mr. Iger was unhappy with Mr. Chapek is well established. Less well known is the depth of his antipathy and the lengths he went to deflate Mr. Chapek behind the scenes.
Mr. Iger, then still under contract as executive chairman, didn’t move out of the office he kept at Disney’s headquarters in Burbank, Calif. He called strategy meetings with Mr. Chapek’s underlings without inviting the new CEO.
Mr. Chapek told friends that Mr. Iger’s attitude seemed to be: “They work for me, not for you.”
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