The Walt Disney Company

Money Moves

Has lost all eight patent cases decided at Europe's Unified Patent Court, with injunctions covering multiple EU countries

InterDigital reported $193.4 million in third-quarter revenue on Oct. 29, up 17% from a year earlier and above its own guidance of $154 million to $158 million. The beat came from a patent license with PC maker Dell, whose final terms will be set through binding arbitration, plus the first revenue from a streaming and cloud services licensing program.

Updated Nov 2

Money Moves

Dropped the planned $1 billion OpenAI equity investment after Sora's shutdown; character licensing ended April 26; says it will keep engaging with AI platforms

OpenAI previewed Sora in February 2024, then shut the consumer app on April 26, 2026 and the developer API on September 24. The math never worked: about $1 million a day in compute against $2.1 million in lifetime revenue, with monthly users below 500,000 at the end.

Updated Oct 24

Money Moves

Stalking-horse bidder in Character.ai's bankruptcy

Character.ai, the chatbot platform that let users talk to AI versions of celebrities and fictional characters, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. The startup, founded in 2021 and once valued at $1 billion, is seeking a court-supervised sale with Disney as the lead bidder.

Updated Oct 18

Rule Changes

Faced backlash and lawsuit over 2015 H-1B layoffs

The wage-weighted H-1B selection rule took effect February 27, 2026, replacing the random lottery. The first registration period under it ran March 4–19. Under the new system, a worker offered a Level IV wage (the top tier) gets four entries in the selection pool; a Level I worker gets one. The rule was designed to curb the duplicate-registration fraud that inflated FY 2024 submissions to 758,994 for 85,000 slots.

Updated Oct 16

Money Moves

As of August 2026: Shedding cable while defending core networks

Disney is walking away from the cable channels that ran A&E, History and Lifetime. On August 5, it agreed to sell its 50% share of A+E Global Media to Hearst, its partner of four decades, for about $1.2 billion in cash.

Updated Aug 6

Money Moves

As of May 2026: Reporting Q2 FY26 results; restructuring around streaming

For 28 years ESPN was Disney's cable cash machine — a pay-TV channel that millions paid for whether they watched it or not. Disney's May 6 earnings report described something different: a standalone $29.99-a-month streaming service, an asset valued at $30 billion, and a sports network in which the National Football League now owns 10%.

Updated May 31

Money Moves

As of May 2026: First major studio to both sue AI firms for infringement and license characters to a leading AI platform.

Mickey Mouse just shook hands with the algorithm Hollywood spent two years trying to tame. Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI, letting Sora and ChatGPT Images legally generate short videos and images of more than 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters — not the actors who play them.

Updated May 11