Is the House of Mouse in a full-on war with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis? If not, the organization is at the very least jabbing a finger in the governor’s eye. The Walt Disney Company will host a major summit to promote LGBTQ rights in the workplace. It will be held in Central Florida in September. Executives and professionals from the world’s largest companies will gather “in a defiant display of the limits of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign against diversity training.”

The relationship between Disney and DeSantis has been tense for more than a year. Disney went super-woke and that included weighing in with political opinions. DeSantis signed a law into effect that ended autonomy at the Disney resort. Disney claimed it was punishment for its opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education legislation. It was widely known as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” thanks to the media and Democrats working together to describe it as such, though the word ‘gay’ does not appear in the bill. It stops discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms for students in lower grades than fourth grade. Children as young as kindergarteners are being protected from educators with aggressive political agendas. Gender politics has no place in the classroom with young children.

Out & Equal is the organization behind the event with Disney. Disney has an established relationship with Out & Equal. They will also host the same summit next year – two years in a row at Disney World in Florida. Last year it was held in Las Vegas. Next year’s summit will coincide with the presidential election campaign in 2024. That isn’t a coincidence as DeSantis is expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination. Progressives really, really don’t want Joe Biden to run against Ron DeSantis. They want to have another Biden versus Trump election.

Dozens of iconic American companies — including Apple, McDonald’s, Uber, Walmart, Hilton, Amazon, Boeing, Cracker Barrel and John Deere — are sponsoring the Out & Equal Workplace Summit, which over 5,000 people are expected to attend. Several agencies, including the State Department and the CIA, are listed as government partners and will have booths at the conference.

The conference comes after DeSantis declared victory over Disney in February when he signed a law that gave him the power to appoint a five-member board overseeing government services at the Disney district near Orlando.

The subsequent legislation left most of Disney’s special powers in place despite the governor’s attempt to dissolve the district. The conservative members the governor appointed to the board hinted at the first meeting of the new board that they would exercise leverage over Disney, such as prohibiting COVID-19 restrictions at Disney World. But legal experts have said that the new board’s authority has no control over Disney content.

Hosting the conference is another demonstration of the limits on the Republican governor’s ability to influence the content and scope of events at Disney.

So, yes, it’s a jab in the eye of the governor.

Going woke for companies, like when Disney decided to get politically active, has consequences. Disney revenues dropped during the company’s kerfuffle with DeSantis. Families canceled memberships. Now there are reports of major layoffs coming, and the word “bloodbath” is being used. Yikes! Cuts are coming to all divisions, including the theme parks. Stock prices still have not risen much despite the streamlining coming.

With Disney’s April 3 shareholder meeting — a virtual affair this year — less than two weeks away, some clarity is emerging about the company’s plans to reduce staff and cut costs.

Insiders tell Deadline that multiple rounds of cuts are being prepared. The first one is being targeted for late March, likely next week, we hear. (March 30 or March 31 have been floated as possible dates, but that has not been confirmed.) According to sources, there will be a big wave in late April, described as “the big one” or a “bloodbath,” when a large portion of the cuts is expected to come.

The cuts are expected to be spread across the company’s three divisions — Entertainment; ESPN; and Parks, Experiences and Products — with marketing and distribution including at the disbanded Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution unit among the business areas ripe for consolidation. Virtually every part of the sprawling Entertainment division is expected to be impacted in a meaningful way. There have been rumors about potential significant cuts at Hulu as well as sister studios ABC Signature and 20th Television both on the business and content side. Despite rampant speculation about the two major TV studios potentially merging operations in some form, that still does not appear to be imminent.

Investors initially cheered Iger’s revelation about streamlining, boosting shares, but the stock has fallen back in recent weeks. It closed Tuesday at $96.54 and has risen about 2% in 2023 to date. Even so, shares now are not much higher than where they crash-landed in March 2020. That was just after Iger passed the CEO baton to Bob Chapek and Covid was beginning to lay siege to almost all of Disney’s operations.

DeSantis didn’t go after the LGBTQ community specifically in a discriminatory way. What he did do was work with the Florida Legislature to put in place legislation that protects school children from an age-inappropriate LGBTQ agenda. Parents responded favorably to that assistance. Progressives and politically active companies decided to misrepresent the legislation and use that as an excuse for their activism when they began to get pushback.

It’s doubtful that the Summit will have any effect on the governor or his primary campaign. Disney and its sponsor can make a big deal of themselves but it won’t change anything. Voters re-elected DeSantis in a landslide. DeSantis turned Florida into a ruby-red state. The legislation is law. DeSantis will run for the Republican nomination. Nothing changes, except Disney may lose some more business. That’s on them, not the governor.