Disney’s New CEO Cut Jobs a Third Time and His Legal Chief Just Issued a Warning

Bob Iger ended his second stint as Disney's CEO and handed the reins to Josh D'Amaro.

D'Amaro's third wave of layoffs this year swept through department after department.

And now, Disney's top lawyer just warned his own team about what looms next.

Legal Chief Tells Staff to Expect a Much Smaller Organization

Horacio Gutierrez runs Disney's legal and global affairs division, and he did not sugarcoat what is coming.

Gutierrez told his staff the department is becoming "a much smaller organization" as Disney leans harder into automating workflows with new technology.

He framed the coming cuts as "hard choices," the kind of phrase executives reach for when they already know the answer.

Days later, Disney confirmed several hundred layoffs across Human Resources, technology, and legal, the company's third round of job cuts in 2026 alone.

Theme park cast members, film studios, and television production were spared this time, but that is cold comfort for the people in HR and legal who were not.

D'Amaro won that job earlier this year after a succession fight that outlasted three other internal contenders.

His pitch was a leaner, more "agile and technologically-enabled workforce," his words, not ours.

Turns out agile means fewer people answering the phones in Burbank.

The Cuts Follow a Pattern Disney Started Under Iger Himself

This is not Disney's first mass layoff, and it will not be the last if the pattern holds.

Iger himself cut 7,000 jobs across 2023, gutting entire divisions in the name of trimming costs after the streaming wars blew a hole in the balance sheet.

D'Amaro's April round hit roughly 1,000 employees, his July round hit Pixar and National Geographic staff, and now his September round has reached Human Resources and legal.

Three rounds in one year is not a restructuring, it is a strategy, and the strategy is fewer humans on the payroll.

In August, Disney told investors it remained "highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise," language that sounds calm until you remember it is describing your neighbor's job.

The company said it was "mid-stream in this work," corporate speak for more cuts are coming.

The Same Disney That Ditched Its DEI Office Is Now Ditching Employees

In February 2025, Disney quietly stripped diversity, equity, and inclusion language out of the company's annual filing and renamed the office that ran it, one of the highest-profile studios to retreat once pressure from the Trump administration and conservative shareholders started building.

Breitbart reported at the time that Disney staffers felt the company was "pandering" to keep the new administration happy.

None of that retreat saved a single job in Burbank.

The same executives who built out diversity offices, trigger warnings on old Disney classics, and a decade of lectures about representation are now telling HR staffers there is no money left for their paychecks.

Conservative parents who boycotted Disney over its politics for years never got an apology, and now the employees who carried out that agenda are getting pink slips instead.

What This Actually Means for the People Still Left at Disney

Disney is not cutting jobs because the Magic Kingdom is losing money hand over fist.

Disney is cutting jobs because Wall Street rewards companies that replace salaried employees with software, and D'Amaro knows exactly which side of that ledger he wants to be on.

Every executive memo about "agile" workforces and "automating workflows" is a polite way of saying the machine does not need health insurance.

The people who staffed Disney's legal and HR departments just found out their experience was the first thing on the chopping block, not the last.

Watch what happens on the next earnings call: expect D'Amaro to tell investors this is about "efficiency," while the workers who actually delivered it collect a severance check and clear out their desks.

Sources:

• Rohan Goswami, "Disney laying off around 300 employees in latest cuts under new CEO Josh D'Amaro," CNBC, September 29, 2026.
• Katcy Stephan, "Disney Cuts Hundreds More Jobs for Third Round of Layoffs Under New CEO," Fast Company, September 29, 2026.
• Alex Weprin, "Disney Hit By Layoffs In Multiple Areas, Hundreds Impacted," Deadline, September 29, 2026.
• Alex Weprin, "Disney Legal Chief Warns Of Looming Layoffs: Much Smaller Organization," Deadline, September 25, 2026.
• Alexandra Del Rosario, "Bob Iger Officially Exits as Disney CEO as Josh D'Amaro Takes Helm," Variety, 2026.
• Todd Spangler, "Disney Layoffs End, 7,000 Jobs Cut," Variety, 2023.
• Breitbart, "Disney's DEI Discord: Staffers Feel Abandoned By Bob Iger, Pandering to Keep MAGA Happy," Breitbart, February 13, 2025.
• Fox Business, "Disney Ditches Diversity, DEI From Business Report in First Time Since 2019," Fox Business, 2025.