While Donald Trump greeted trick-or-treaters on the White House grounds on Oct. 30, it was The Great Gatsby-themed Halloween evening bash at Mar-a-Lago that caught the interest of television news over the weekend, with multiple outlets noting the irony of hosting a Roaring Twenties gala as SNAP food assistance benefits were running out due to the government shutdown. (Does anyone remember what happened after the Roaring Twenties…)
Splashed over those chyrons and headlines, though, were a selection of party photos from AFP and Getty photographers Roberto Schmidt and Samuel Corum, who took some snaps of the President’s table, showing Secretary of State Marco Rubio alongside a few other dignitaries. Not labeled in the Getty photos, however, and seated directly next to Donald Trump at Table 24 was Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter — the billionaire Marvel mogul who sold the comic book giant to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion and was formally ousted in 2023 by CEO Bob Iger, who has detailed his confrontations with Perlmutter over the years.
The Marvel entertainment chairman was a major force behind his Palm Beach neighbor Nelson Peltz’s proxy fight at Disney in 2023 that aimed to make changes at the studio and claim a board seat for Peltz. Iger ultimately prevailed last April, when a shareholder vote approved Disney’s board director nominees — but not after a monthslong drag out fight costing around $40 million in which the CEO needed to enlist a slew of names (George Lucas, JP Morgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon, Roy O. Disney’s heirs) to back his proposals to fend off the activists. Perlmutter subsequently sold his entire stake in Disney after the fight.
During his tumultuous decade as part of the Disney empire, which coincided with the rise in Marvel’s Avengers cinematic universe as a box office juggernaut, Perlmutter famously was at odds with the studio’s creative team. Just one example: In 2015, Marvel architect Kevin Feige was able persuade top brass to redraw the Disney film org chart in order to not report to Perlmutter ahead of the release of Captain America: Civil War.
Iger later recounted in his book, Ride of a Lifetime, that the Marvel mogul had aimed to stop development of a few key features. “I called Ike and told him to tell his team to stop putting up roadblocks and ordered that we put both Black Panther and Captain Marvel into production,” Iger wrote. “Ike heeded my requests.”
That detail echoed in the proxy fight when Peltz gave an interview to the Financial Times last March criticizing Disney’s tentpoles and asking, “Why do I have to have a Marvel [movie] that’s all women?”
The Disney CEO also described Perlmutter in his 2019 book as a “reclusive character” who “never appeared in public or allowed pictures of himself to be taken.” While that may have held true in Trump’s first term, that reluctance may be waning in his second administration. Perlmutter was photographed with his wife in the Oval Office this October during a press conference that also included attorney general Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel.
Holding court with Trump at Mar-a-Lago during a holiday party was just the latest high-profile turn. Wonder what they talked about.
Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 31.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
The scene at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago party on Oct. 31.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
The President, in conversation at Table 24 during his Oct. 31 Halloween party.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
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