Disney dodges the Trump question

• Last week, Warner Bros Discovery said it was excited about doing deals during Trump's second term.
• Disney's Bob Iger is taking a different tack: He says the company has bought everything it needs.
• Regardless of what Iger actually wants to do, he's probably better off not talking about it right now.

Some media executives are excited to buy and sell big assets during the next Trump administration.

Disney's Bob Iger is not one of them. He says the company has already made the moves it needs to make.

"In a way, we've already consolidated," he said on the company's earnings call Thursday morning, in response to a question about M&A possibilities during Trump 2.0. Iger said Disney's 2017 decision to buy many of Rupert Murdoch's Fox assets, including its stake in Hulu, means his company doesn't need to go shopping again.

"While we always look opportunistically at opportunities — as we've proven in the past, we certainly don't shy away from those — we in many respects have already consolidated," he said. "We don't really need more assets right now, either from a distribution or a content perspective, to thrive in a disrupted media world."

Iger's comments are a pointed contrast to those made by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav last week during his company's earnings call. Zaslav said the next Trump administration could "offer a pace of change, and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different, that would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that's needed."

Zaslav, and his board member/investor John Malone, have been calling for media consolidation for years. And Malone pushed for it again on Tuesday at an industry conference, suggesting that Comcast and Charter — the country's two biggest pay TV and broadband providers — should merge.

As we mentioned last week, while executives in many industries think Trump's incoming administration will give a green light to all kinds of deal-making, it's not a foregone conclusion.

Some members of Trump's circle, including Vice President-elect JD Vance and Matt Gaetz, Trump's attorney general nominee, have been skeptical about the power of Big Tech in particular.

And in Trump's first term, he was inconsistent about his stance on media deals. His DOJ sued, unsuccessfully, to stop AT&T from buying Time Warner, but he was an enthusiastic supporter of Murdoch's Disney deal.

One other thing worth noting: Even if Iger was thinking about M&A during Trump 2.0, it wouldn't help him much to talk about it at the moment.

Disney, like other media companies that have news organizations, has already drawn Trump's ire during the 2024 campaign. Trump, angry about the way Disney's ABC News talent moderated his September debate with Kamala Harris, has already said the network should lose its broadcast license. He's gone further in attacking other media companies — last month, he sued Paramount's CBS over what he said was unfair treatment from its 60 Minutes show.

And Iger has to manage more than just Trump. His customers and employees can be highly sensitive to the company's interactions with politics, as we saw play out in Disney's two-year battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. During that fight, conservatives harped on the company for being too "woke," while liberals — including some Disney employees — felt the company wasn't forceful enough in standing up for diversity.

It's no surprise, then, that Iger didn't say the word "Trump" once during his call. No upside in poking the bear.