Florida, with its plentiful beaches and elaborate night life, is well known as a haven for tourists
One of the state's more alluring trademarks is Disney World, a 10,117 hectare community that contains four theme parks, two water parks, 40 hotels and an entire shopping precinct.
But all is not well.
Florida's governor — and recent presidential hopeful — Ron DeSantis launched a bid to strip the company of its power in the state.
Disney retaliated by launching a legal battle against him personally.
Here's how a leaked memo from Disney's former boss led to a tit-for-tat saga.
Who is Ron DeSantis?
He's a Republican politician.
Currently, he's seen as the biggest rival to Donald Trump's bid to become the Republican party's candidate to run for president in the next US federal election.
The Florida native, who is three decades younger than Mr Trump, has been working in government for most of his career.
His first position in public service was as an attorney in the Judge Advocate General Corps program at Guantanamo Bay.
Mr DeSantis oversaw the treatment of detainees while working at the prison.
After briefly working as an assistant US attorney, Mr DeSantis won a US congressional seat in 2012.
In 2018, he ran for Florida governor.
His chances for winning seemed slim until Mr Trump — who was president at the time — gave him a glowing endorsement.
Mr DeSantis went on to win the governorship by a tight margin.
He became internationally known over the pandemic due to his defiance of any lockdowns, mask or vaccine mandates in order to keep Florida businesses open.
Mr DeSantis is also known for his so-called "war on woke" agenda.
He has pushed to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory – which argues the US is rife with systemic racism — and concepts of gender identity in public schools.
This is part of his "Stop Woke act", where "WOKE" stands for "Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees".
What started the conflict between Ron DeSantis and Disney?
Mr DeSantis has a long history of supporting measures that are seen as discriminatory against the LGBTQIA+ community.
In 2021, he signed in a Florida law that banned transgender girls and women from participating in middle, high school and college women's competitions.
Then in 2022, he kicked it up a notch with his support of the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act – commonly known as the "Don't Say Gay" law.
The law came into practice in March 2022 and prohibited discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in school classes from kindergarten to year three.
It was widely criticised outside of Florida for being biased towards the LGBTQIA+ community with the White House officially calling it, "hateful legislation targeting vulnerable students".
It has since been extended to include grades four to 12.
A day after the bill passed, then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek condemned the legislation in a leaked memo to Disney leadership.
Mr Chapek then went public with Disney's opposition to the bill and apologised for not speaking out sooner.
Mr DeSantis wasn't very happy with Disney for speaking up against him and he almost immediately retaliated.
But before we get to that you need to know that Disney World is so big that since it opened it has operated as its own city, colloquially known as Reedy Creek.
What is Reedy Creek?
Created in 1967, the Reedy Creek Improvement District was a special purpose district created by state law that allowed Disney governmental control over the land in and around the parks.
For more than half a century the district has enabled Disney to function like a county government, providing services such as firefighting, power, water and roads within Orange and Osceola counties. In turn Disney can issue bonds with tax advantages to pay for improvements.
Since inception, Disney has created 215 kilometres of roads and 107 kilometres of waterways around the property.
And that's where Mr DeSantis chose to attack the "House of Mouse".
How did DeSantis retaliate?
In April 2022, Mr DeSantis signed a bill that stripped Disney of its 55-year-old self-governing status.
But rather than dissolving Reedy Creek, Mr DeSantis instead seized it on behalf of Florida and appointed a board to control the district.
Mr DeSantis appointed five allies to the new "Central Florida Tourism Oversight District", saying that the group would not only supervise municipal services but act as a moral arbiter for a company that has "lost it's way".
Mr DeSantis said the move would see Disney pay more taxes, but legal experts are at a loss with how Florida will take over the district without also assuming its $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in debt.
The board officially gained control on February 27...but only in writing.
Disney's sneaky move
Disney is not one to back down.
In a move that one-upped Mr DeStantis's supposed checkmate, the former Reedy Creek Development board signed its power back to Disney before handing the reigns over to Mr DeStantis's board.
And the binding declaration doesn't expire "until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III".
They called it the Declaration of Restrictive Covenants and it allows Disney to have final say on any property alterations and requires the board to inform Disney of any planned alterations.
The move rendered Mr DeSantis's board functionally useless beyond maintaining roads and basic infrastructure.
And no one – not Mr DeSantis or anyone on the new board – seemed to notice until 19 days after it had been actioned.
Bring in the lawsuits
Not content with pulling the rug from under Mr DeSantis's board, Disney then proceeded to slap a lawsuit on the Florida governor.
Disney sued Mr DeSantis over his takeover of its theme park district, alleging the governor waged a "targeted campaign of government retaliation".
They filed the lawsuit minutes after Disney's Reedy Creek powers were assured.
Here's a snippet of what Disney's lawsuit said:
"Disney regrets that it has come to this," the case said. "But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution, the Company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponise government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials."
The Disney lawsuit asks a federal judge to void the governor's takeover of the theme park district, as well as the Mr DeSantis's oversight board's actions, on the grounds that they were violations of company's free speech rights.
In response to the lawsuit a Mr DeSantis spokesperson said that they were "unaware of any legal right that a company has to operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state".
Mr DeSantis then publicly vowed retribution against Disney for the lawsuit, going as far to suggest he will build a prison next to Disney World.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has also said that any actions against the company that threaten jobs or expansion at its Florida resort was not only "anti-business" but "anti-Florida".
At the start of the month, Mr DeSantis' governing board counter-sued Disney.
The DeSantis board's lawsuit claims the agreements with Disney "reek of a backroom deal".
They claim the previous board members failed to give proper notice about the agreements, lacked the authority to make them, unlawfully delegated governmental authority to a private entity and the agreements are unenforceable under Florida law, according to the suit.
What's next for DeSantis V Disney?
It's hard to say for sure, but it looks like the saga is far from over.
On May 18, Disney announced that they had canned plans to build a $US1 billion office complex in Florida. The move would have added 2,000 jobs to the state.
Disney Parks Chairman Josh D'Amaro told employees in an email that the company had decided not to move forward with the massive office complex in Orlando because of "new leadership and changing business conditions".
A week later and after months of denying speculation, Mr DeSantis finally announced his run for presidency in a disastrous Twitter Spaces event alongside Elon Musk.
But as the Florida governor sets his hopes on controlling beyond his state, his problems at home remain unsolved.
ABC/Reuters/AP
