Bob Iger Calls a $1B Cease-Fire With OpenAI… Gives Altman Total Access to Disney’s Creative Kingdom

Bob Iger has that dog in him…

Disney (+1.2%) just hit us all with a “never let them know your next move” type beat: a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI, effectively handing Mickey Mouse the keys to the entire generative content universe.

As part of the deal, OpenAI’s Sora users will soon be able to generate videos featuring Mickey, Ariel, Cinderella, Iron Man, Darth Vader, probably even that weirdly jacked version of Goofy that lives in the meme economy.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

Meaning, next holiday season, your niece is going to open her iPad and type: “Elsa teaching Darth Vader how to ice skate at an East Coast mall.” …and Sora will say, “Already rendered, want it in 4K?”

How big of a deal are we talking? Let’s just say over (checks notes) 200 characters across Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars are about to be unleashed into the wild imagination of the internet. Civilization has peaked.

But Iger didn’t stop at letting his characters loose in the AI gladiator arena. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is also rolling out ChatGPT to employees, building new tools with OpenAI’s tech, and securing warrants to buy up even more equity down the line. 

Bob Iger all but said: “We’d be irresponsible not to double down on this.”

All of this makes the pivot even funnier when you remember Disney spent the last year suing every AI startup that accidentally drew Pluto with the wrong number of fingers. 

They fired off a copyright missile at Google, hit Midjourney with a lawsuit, warned Character.AI to back up their IP… and pretty much signaled to all of Silicon Valley, “Use our characters again and we will delete your family tree.”

And now? They’re signing a three-year love contract with OpenAI like nothing ever happened. It’s giving Dana White finally teaming up with Paramount after realizing half the UFC was getting streamed for free on reddit anyway. 

Sometimes you stop fighting the pirates and start selling them tickets.

Hollywood unions are understandably losing their sh*t. Fans, meanwhile, are losing their minds over the fact they’ll soon be able to spin up instant chaos like, “Elsa hosting a breakup podcast with Darth Vader as her co-host.” 

Sure, OpenAI might mute the trauma dumping, but it’ll happily generate the podcast set.

Sam Altman, meanwhile, is floating on cloud nine after pulling off quite a heist. Not only does he dodge a fresh wave of lawsuits, he also gets paid to splash Disney’s characters across every corner of the AI universe. 

And in my opinion? He’s right to celebrate… this is the biggest IP bragging right the AI world has seen yet and it stacks yet another major partner behind OpenAI ahead of their eventual IPO moment.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Disney as mentioned in the article.