Florida Governor and current presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has announced an inquiry into the parent company of Bud Light and its disastrous advertising campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
In a letter to the Executive Director of the Florida State Board of Administration, DeSantis suggested that Anheuser-Busch InBev breached their fiduciary duty to their shareholders by running the collaboration with Mulvaney. After widespread controversy, sales of the typically popular beer brand dumped by 31% over the previous year, with the company seemingly losing billions in market value.
“AB InBev’s performance has plummeted since its decision to associate its Bud Light brand with radical social ideologies. That fateful decision has transformed America’s best-selling beer… into a commercial pariah. InBev’s losses have been staggering,” DeSantis wrote in the letter.
Given that the state holds over $53 million worth of stock as part of their Florida pension funds for state employees, shareholders were seriously impacted by the controversial campaign, DeSantis argued.
“We must prudently manage the funds of Florida’s hardworking [state employees]… in a manner that focuses on growing returns, not subsidising an ideological agenda through woke virtue signalling,” he added.
“It appears to me that AB InBev may have breached legal duties owed to its shareholders, and that a shareholder action may be both appropriate and necessary,” he continued. “To protect SBA and the retirees of Florida from losses attributable to AB InBev’s disregard of those duties, all options are on the table.”
“When you start pursuing a political agenda at the expense of your shareholders, that’s not just impacting very wealthy people. It impacts hardworking people who were police officers, firefighters and teachers in terms of the pension,” DeSantis told Fox News.
In a statement, a spokesman for AB InBev said that they take their “responsibility to our shareholders, employees, distributors and customers seriously,” and that they are “focused on driving long-term, sustainable growth for them by optimizing our business and providing consumers products to enjoy for any occasion.”
DeSantis has made battling against the “woke agenda” a top political priority, having previously backed a law that restricted drag queens from performing in front of minors in the state. However, the attempted legislation was blocked after a judge ruled that the guideline was too broad, allowing a lawsuit against it to go ahead.
Florida has seemingly been at the forefront of battling gender ideology on an administrative scale. In April of 2022, the Florida Department of Health issued a press release discouraging all forms of medical and social treatment for ‘gender dysphoria’ in children and adolescents.
