In one of his first moves, Iger made Disney shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives available for sale on Apple ‘s iTunes platform, ushering in the unique idea of watching TV online. Three months later he bought Pixar from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. That $7.4 billion deal was an eye-popper, paving the way for blockbusters like Cars and Inside Out that reinvigorated Disney’s animated film business.

Those early moves hinted at key parts of Iger’s strategy: acquire marquee entertainment franchises and find new ways to exploit them. As he prepares to hand the reins next month to his successor, theme-parks chief Josh D’Amaro, Iger leaves a legacy that includes snapping up the biggest brand names in Hollywood via more than $100 billion in mergers and acquisitions, expanding in China and building a streaming business that delivered $24.6 billion in revenue from people watching movies and TV shows online last year.

“That’s one huge insight of his,” said David Collis, an executive education fellow at Harvard Business School who has written about Iger. “If you own these incredible entertainment franchises, any device only increases demand for your content.”

More deals followed Pixar, including Marvel Entertainment and its stable of superheroes, Star Wars-parent Lucasfilm and the $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019, which brought in franchises like The Simpsons and Avatar.

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“The deal we did for Fox, in many ways, was ahead of its time,” Iger said this week on an earnings call when asked about Netflix’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery.
Those acquired characters and stories found their way into Disney’s theme parks. In 2013, when the company first began exploring a Star Wars land for the parks, Iger told his designers, “Be the most ambitious that you have ever been,” Bob Weis, the longtime head of Disney’s parks design business, recalled in his 2024 autobiography.Iger was also keen on international expansion, green-lighting the $5.4 billion Shanghai Disneyland. Before its 2016 opening, Iger flew to China on a nearly monthly basis to monitor its progress, according to Weis.

The same year the Fox acquisition closed, Iger launched Disney+, the company’s flagship streaming service, the company’s response to the growing dominance of Netflix in online viewing. Providing a new outlet for programming that ran on networks like the Disney Channel was a threat to the company’s lucrative cable-TV business, but in the end, Iger relented.

Disney+ was a hit from the start. Ten million customers signed up the first day, driven by programming such as the Star Wars-spinoff The Mandalorian. The company reported 132 million Disney+ subscribers at the end of its latest fiscal year.

TV Star
Iger has spent his whole career in the TV business, rising up the ranks at ABC and performing every task, from getting a bottle of Listerine for Frank Sinatra before a TV special to scheduling the 1988 Winter Olympics. He was considered a likely CEO of broadcaster Capital Cities/ABC until that company was acquired by Disney in 1996 and he had to start clawing his way up the corporate ladder again.

When a shareholder revolt finally prompted the retirement of Disney CEO Michael Eisner in 2005, Iger got his shot.

More than 20 years later, the worst grade on Iger’s corporate report card likely comes in succession planning. Multiple extensions of his contract over the years led senior Disney executives to exit. When he finally stepped down for the first time in 2020, his handpicked successor Bob Chapek proved to be disappointment.

As Iger prepares to pass the baton to D’Amaro on March 18, he leaves plenty of work still to be done. On the recent earnings call, Iger said he hoped his replacement would carry on with his focus on reinvention.

That’s the value of the Dow industrials divided by the gold price. The lower the ratio, the pricier the metal looks compared to blue-chip stocks—and it is now below a long-term average of 13.8 times.

In the latest edition of my Markets A.M. newsletter, I look at gold valuations, and why we’re unlikely to see a repeat of the metal’s stunning outperformance in the ’70s. You can sign up for the newsletter here, or read the full article below:

A newly introduced bill would prevent some public sector retirees from being hit with a tax bill after they were made eligible for Social Security benefits last year.

The bipartisan bill, known as the No Tax on Restored Benefits Act, was introduced by Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and would create a gross income tax exclusion for the retroactive, lump sum payments of Social Security benefits paid to certain public sector retirees on pensions who previously had their benefits reduced or eliminated because they didn’t pay Social Security taxes while working. 

It follows last year’s enactment of the Social Security Fairness Act, which allowed for the retroactive benefit payments to covered retirees.

“First, the federal government shortchanged public servants by withholding the Social Security benefits. Now, Washington is trying to tax those benefits,” Gooden told FOX Business. “It’s a slap in the face to teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers and more who devoted their careers to serving our communities. The No Tax on Restored Benefits Act finally ends the mistreatment of our public-sector retirees.”

SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS TO INCREASE FOR PUBLIC PENSION RECIPIENTS

The new bill would aim to prevent a tax consequence for those who got lump sum payments under the Social Security Fairness Act. (Mark Felix/The Washington Post)

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, is a lead cosponsor of the bill and said the Social Security Fairness Act “was truly transformative” for hundreds of thousands of Americans, but “it was never intended to saddle widows, low-income seniors and dedicated public servants with an unexpected tax bill.”

“The No Tax on Restored Benefits Act addresses this problem in a fair, commonsense way by protecting people who were previously below the taxation threshold from being unfairly punished because of a one-time, retroactive increase in their earned benefits,” Pingree said.

The bill has received support from the National Association of Police Organizations, and Executive Director Bill Johnson noted that “retirees are facing a large tax bill on those same benefits Congress worked to restore,” and the new legislation “will ensure no public servant will continue to be penalized simply because they chose public service.”

MILLIONS TO GET HIGHER SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS UNDER NEW LAW

Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, introduced this bill to protect restored Social Security benefits from taxes. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The introduction of the No Tax on Restored Benefits Act follows the enactment of the Social Security Fairness Act last year, which made certain public sector retirees eligible for the retroactive payments and was signed into law in January 2025 by then-President Joe Biden.

It eliminated policies known as the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension (GPO) which reduced or eliminated Social Security benefits for workers who received a public pension and weren’t covered by Social Security taxes. 

Those policies reduced or eliminated Social Security benefits for over 3.2 million people who receive a pension for work that wasn’t covered by Social Security because they didn’t pay Social Security taxes.

SOME SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFICIARIES TO RECEIVE PAYMENTS EARLY FOR FEBRUARY AND MARCH

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, cosponsored the No Tax on Restored Benefits Act. (Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Among the groups of people affected include certain teachers, firefighters and police officers in many states; federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System; and people whose work was covered by a foreign social security system.

The WEP and GPO policies didn’t apply to all people within those groups because about 72% of state and local public employees work in roles covered by Social Security and pay into the system. So, those retirees won’t see a benefit increase under the Social Security Fairness Act.

The elimination of WEP and GPO policies was retroactive to January 2024, and the Social Security Administration indicated the one-time payment would be deposited into the account on file by the end of March 2025.

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The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that the Social Security Fairness Act will add $196 billion to the federal budget deficit over the 10 years after its enactment and projected it will hasten the insolvency of Social Security’s main trust fund by six months.