Disney President Dana Walden defended the company’s latest layoffs Thursday as necessary to remain competitive, even as executives prepare a television restructuring expected to eliminate hundreds more jobs.
Speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Walden said competition in streaming and artificial-intelligence tools that can lower production costs have forced Disney to reconsider how it operates. The changes have meant dismissing people she has worked with for decades.
“We’ve exited colleagues who I’ve worked with for most of my career… It is in many ways a harsh reality,” she said. “It is extremely painful.”
Disney cut more than 300 positions Tuesday, primarily in human resources and information technology, according to U.S. media reports. Those reductions followed roughly 1,000 job cuts in April, largely in marketing, after Josh D’Amaro became chief executive.
Disney-owned ABC News faced another controversy in December 2024, when it agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum and $1 million in legal fees to settle his defamation lawsuit. The case concerned George Stephanopoulos’s statements that Trump had been found liable for rape in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, though the judge later said the conduct fit the commonly understood meaning of rape. ABC and Stephanopoulos issued a statement expressing regret for the broadcast remarks.
More cuts could follow as Disney combines television operations around its streaming business, The New York Post reported. The plans remain unfinished and may not be settled before year’s end. ABC News and executives overseeing individual television units could be affected.
Debra OConnell is leading that effort. Her responsibilities include ABC Entertainment, Hulu Originals and other television properties that Disney has traditionally operated separately. The proposed changes would bring those businesses under more centralized management as the company adjusts to how streaming audiences watch its programming.
“There is a need to constantly evaluate how you’re structured,” Walden said. “Technology set their sights on our business, and we must survive and thrive and grow. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
Walden said some executives had received a voluntary retirement offer, giving them “the opportunity to make their own decision around whether the timing was right to leave or to stay.” It was unclear whether Tuesday’s reductions included departures under that program.
The restructuring follows years of controversy over Disney’s embrace of progressive cultural politics. Its decision to remove “boys and girls” and “ladies and gentlemen” from park greetings became an example of the company’s turn toward gender-neutral language. Disney trained employees to use greetings such as “Hello, everyone” and “Hello, friends,” part of an inclusion effort that drew criticism from conservatives who argued the company was injecting politics into family entertainment.
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