Disney Offers Jobs to 66 Character.AI Staffers at $60 Million a Year, Chapter 11 Filing Shows

Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 on a Tuesday with Disney as its $20 million stalking-horse bidder, and new details from the bankruptcy docket show how much Disney is spending on the people, not just the technology.

Disney has agreed to make job offers to 66 Character.AI employees, according to the filing. Disney would pay them an estimated $60 million per year in compensation.

The filing also sets aside a $30 million "aggregate retention pool" to keep them in place. Disney expects to spend $180 million on total compensation and retention for the group over three years.

Who has already moved

Of the 66, 56 have resigned from Character.AI, the filing says. The other 10 are waiting on the U.S. government to update their work visas. The filing describes the "vast majority" of those offered jobs as having accepted.

Character.AI's former CEO, Karandeep Anand, is already at Disney. The company named him its first company-wide chief technology officer in September, and the appointment took effect Oct. 2. He reports to CEO Josh D'Amaro and oversees enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering. Disney has not disclosed his pay.

What Disney is and is not buying

The $20 million bid is for a non-exclusive, perpetual license to specified Character.AI intellectual property and technology. It is a stalking-horse bid, meaning it sets the floor. Other companies can submit competing offers by Nov. 20, and a bankruptcy judge oversees the process.

The license excludes the Character.AI app, the brand, user data, and user conversations. Disney is taking engineers and a technology license. It is not taking the chat logs of a platform used by minors.

Character.AI listed assets and liabilities of $50 million to $100 million. The filing says that despite a "large and engaged user base," the company was hobbled by high costs and "potential litigation-related liabilities and regulatory engagement."

Those liabilities are real. A mother sued after her 14-year-old son died by suicide following what she said was an obsession with one of the company's chatbots. Character.AI and Google, one of its backers, settled several child-safety suits earlier this year. The company also faces government investigations over child safety.

The Disney backdrop

Disney's own tech payroll is moving in the other direction. Business Insider reports the hiring came two weeks after Disney laid off several hundred workers, including some tech employees. The late-September cuts were Disney's third major round since D'Amaro took over in mid-March. In September, Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez told employees the Legal and Global Affairs organization would get smaller.

Business Insider also puts Disney's stock at up less than 2% over the last 12 months and down more than 36% over five years.

The two companies have a history. Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter in September 2025 over chatbots using its copyrighted characters, including Star Wars and Marvel figures. Character.AI said it removed them.

Entertainment lawyer Corey Martin of Granderson Des Rochers, who advises companies on media deals and did not work on this one, said the pay figures are not surprising. "They're highly compensated employees. The numbers can be eye-popping, but it's not that unusual in this space," he said. Character.AI's employees, he added, are its biggest asset.

What comes next

Disney's deal is not final. If a rival bids above $20 million by Nov. 20, the license could go to someone else. The employment offers sit alongside that process, and 56 of the 66 have already left Character.AI.

The unresolved question is the user data. Disney is not buying it, and no buyer for it has been named. The bankruptcy papers say 23 state attorneys general are now seeking privacy protections around user data, especially where minors are involved.