Disney is ditching Slack after hackers gained access, and some employees aren’t happy. Read the CFO’s memo.

A hacking group claimed it had accessed Disney’s Slack messages and files in July. Two months later, Disney’s CFO announced the company was moving away from using Slack.

Disney is gearing up to stop using the messaging platform Slack, causing apparent grumblings in some corners of the company.

The media giant plans to discontinue its use of Salesforce’s messaging platform for most teams by the end of the first quarter of its fiscal year 2025, according to an internal email obtained by B-17.

“I would like to share that senior leadership has made the decision to transition away from Slack across the company,” Disney CFO Hugh Johnston wrote in the email, which was first reported by Oliver Darcy in his “Status” newsletter on Wednesday.

“Our technology teams are now managing the transition off Slack by the end of Q1 FY25 for most businesses,” the Disney exec said, adding that it might take longer to discontinue using Slack in “more complex use cases,” which will follow a quarter later.

The news of its plans to stop using Slack comes after hacking group Nullbulge claimed it had breached Disney’s internal Slack messages during the summer. The hacking group gained access to more than 1.1 TB of messages and files, according to Wired. In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that it had seen leaked files from Disney’s Slack. A Disney spokesperson told the Journal at the time that it was investigating the matter.

“Much more information, training resources, and best practices for optimal work-related collaboration and reinforcement of policies regarding secure handling of sensitive information will be shared over the coming weeks by your respective technology teams,” Hugh wrote in the memo.

Some Disney employees voiced their unhappiness with the move on the anonymous workplace forum Blind, according to screenshots of the conversations on Blind provided to B-17 by a source. Blind requires users to have a company email address to view and post to a specific company channel.

Some of the workers complained about an apparent plan to transition to Microsoft Teams, a Slack rival, according to the screenshots.

Multiple employees said they believed the company was moving to Microsoft Teams for cost-saving purposes and worried they’d lose longstanding Slack integrations and archived content with the transition, ultimately costing the company in productivity.

“Teams is horrible,” wrote one.

“So terrible,” said another.

Disney and Microsoft did not immediately respond to B-17’s requests for comment. Salesforce, which owns Slack, declined to comment.

Read the full memo from Disney’s CFO

Fellow Employees and Cast Members,
Collaboration is at the heart of our employee culture. It connects us to each other, our work, and ultimately our guests and consumers — fueling the creativity required to make Disney magic.
How we work and collaborate together is equally important, and where we have opportunities to leverage more integrated tools and platforms we should. As some of you are aware, many teams have already begun their transition to streamlined enterprise-wide collaboration tools.
As part of this work, I would like to share that senior leadership has made the decision to transition away from Slack across the company. Our technology teams are now managing the transition off Slack by the end of Q1 FY25 for most businesses, with DX and more complex use cases following in Q2 FY25. This will help integrate our collaboration tools with some of the new platforms already being put in place. These teams are planning and overseeing key workstreams to support this transition, with a focus on reinforcing current TWDC policies for work-related collaboration.
We are excited about the alignment and productivity that will be unlocked as we streamline our collaboration platforms, and we appreciate your patience as we navigate new ways of working together.
Much more information, training resources, and best practices for optimal work-related collaboration and reinforcement of policies regarding secure handling of sensitive information will be shared over the coming weeks by your respective technology teams.
Thanks,
Hugh