Ex-Disney CEO Chapek: I Warned the Board About Iger Weekly

Bob Chapek says he raised concerns about Bob Iger with Disney's board "weekly" during his tenure as CEO — and the board brushed him off with a promise that Iger "will be gone in two years."

The former chief executive made the disclosure Monday in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" tied to his new memoir, "Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth." It breaks a silence he has kept since his ouster from the media giant nearly four years ago.

Chapek described a pattern of disparagement that reached him through third parties. "When I started hearing about lunches that he had and dinners that he had where he was absolutely trashing me, and I'd hear it two, three times in the same week, the same bullet points, the same talking points, I was like, 'I've got a problem,'" Chapek told CNBC.

The power struggle at the top of the House of Mouse has a documented timeline. Chapek, previously head of Disney's theme park and experiences division, took the helm just weeks before the Covid pandemic shuttered movie theaters and amusement parks worldwide in 2020. Iger stayed on as executive chairman to run Disney's content initiatives, including Disney+.

According to Chapek, Iger then slowly began to reassert control over the company he had led for years. A CNBC report in 2023 detailed the ensuing battle.

The board's response to Chapek's warnings, as he recalls it, was dismissive: "He'll be gone in two years. It's OK. That's Bob being Bob."

That reassurance proved hollow. Almost three years after being named CEO, Chapek was ousted and replaced by Iger, who returned to the post and is set to hold it until March 2026.

Chapek's sharpest criticism targets what he saw as Iger's active sabotage rather than mere absence of support. "It would have been great if, like other CEOs, he acted as a steward of my new role," Chapek said. "It would have been one thing if he was neutral, but to be actually working against me, actively, I thought was just unbelievable."

For Disney watchers, the account adds a first-person layer to one of the most consequential succession failures in recent corporate history — one that ultimately returned the company to the leader its board had already replaced. With Iger's second run as CEO scheduled to end in March 2026, the question of who follows him remains open, and Chapek's account of how the last transition collapsed is now on the record.