James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, released an undercover video on his X account, and the O’Keefe Media Group’s YouTube channel, allegedly showing Walt Disney Company Senior Vice President Michael Giordano accusing the company of discrimination. Elon Musk responded to the O’Keefe Media Group report, stating on X, “This is messed up”.
Giordano described his duties at Disney as senior vice president and team lead for 20th Television, stating:
I do business affairs, like negotiations for television shows. So I’m not really like on the creative side.… You know, so a lot of it is knowing the guild agreements and everything. Make offers for the writers and the actors who are going to be working on the show and producers and directors. Try to like, get to a place where we can close a deal with them.
The O’Keefe Media Group undercover journalist asked about his opportunities for advancement at Disney, with Giordano responding:
Right now I’m like a half step below being a department head. I have a team under me but I don’t oversee a whole department. And I’d like to oversee a whole department. Whether that’s at Disney, or having to leave for that, so.
Giordano continued, stating he was unsure if he would receive a promotion at Disney due to the fact he is a white male, responding:
I’m not sure to be honest with you. I think I’m sort of well prepared for it. I’m well positioned for it. But um … as far as Disney is concerned I’m a white male. And that’s not who they’re looking to promote at the moment.
When asked about discrimination against white males, Giordano claimed he lost out on promotions to less-qualified employees when he had more experience.
I mean I’ve been up for jobs internally against people who have less experience than me. And, you know, I haven’t gotten them…. I mean I’ve been at the company for 11 years now so I have friends in HR and I have friends in those divisions. And they’re like, “Look, nobody else is going to tell you this, Mike but they’re not considering any white males for this job. They’re just not.”
Giordano was recorded saying writers at Disney “lean into trans stories” due to 30 to 35 percent of the writers at Disney being “gay,” stating:
I mean like, just like, if you say whatever, I don’t know, whatever 10 or 15% of the population is gay, I would guess that 30 or 35% of our top writers happen to be, you know, gay. And so I think a lot of them lean into trans stories more than the average straight writer would.
Giordano also alleged Disney discriminated against mixed-raced individuals, stating:
We had a situation where we wanted to hire somebody in the department a few years ago now, who was half black but didn’t like appear half black. And there was a creative executive who was like, “We’re not, like, that’s not, that’s not what’s wanted.” They wanted somebody in meetings who would appear a certain way and he wasn’t gonna bring that to the meeting.
