Trump Suggests End To Bud Light Boycott

Topline

Former President Donald Trump suggested his supporters still boycotting Bud Light over its ad campaign last year with trans star Dylan Mulvaney give the brand a “Second Chance,” saying Tuesday that its producer Anheuser-Busch is “not a woke company,” as the country’s one-time best-selling beer looks to recoup lost profit after its major fallout.

Former President Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed alcohol abstainer, praised Anheuser-Busch as a … [+] “Great American Brand that perhaps deserves a Second Chance.”

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Key Facts

Trump lauded Anheuser-Busch as a “Great American Brand” in a Truth Social post Tuesday afternoon, suggesting the St. Louis-based company “perhaps deserves a Second Chance.”

Anheuser-Busch has been struggling to recover from slumping sales after its brief partnership with Mulvaney last April, a marketing scheme that proved disastrous in right-wing circles, where media personalities, athletes and musicians called for boycotts against the company amid a wave of conservative pushback against so-called woke advertising.

Trump, who himself does not drink, appeared to call for an end to the boycott Tuesday, saying that instead of targeting Bud Light, “we should be going after those companies that are looking to DESTROY AMERICA,” though he did not list any companies specifically.

Trump, the 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner, also sung Anheuser-Busch’s praises, applauding the company for employing “65 thousand Americans” and partnering with veteran scholarship organization Folds of Honor (Anheuser-Busch says it employs 18,000 people in the U.S., with another 47,000 people working at independent distributors, while federal filings list just over 20,000 employees in North America as of 2022).

Key Background

After years as the top-selling beer in the U.S., Bud Light sparked outrage in right-wing circles after it partnered with Mulvaney last spring, prompting a parade of attack videos and calls for boycotts, including from country star Kid Rock, multiple Olympic athletes and far-right media personalities. The drama began when Mulvaney, a social media star known for videos about her gender transformation, posted a video on April 1 showing herself with a can of Bud Light depicting her face that the company sent to her to mark her one-year anniversary after coming out as transgender. One month later, AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris blamed online misinformation for the boycott stemming from its marketing, saying the campaign was “not an advertisement” and that the can with Mulvaney’s face was not meant for wide production. By May, however, the boycott was top of mind for right-wing media, and it has been credited with sinking Bud Light out of the coveted top spot of highest-selling beer, with Modelo Especial surpassing it last May, according to data from alcohol consulting firm Bump Williams. Anheuser-Busch shares were also sent into a tailspin, dropping from $66.73 on March 31—one day before Mulvaney posted the video—to $53.40 by the end of May, a 20% drop (shares have since rebounded to nearly $64).

Contra

Mulvaney has criticized Bud Light for not defending her amid a wave of right-wing scorn, releasing a video that not standing by her was a worse decision than “not hiring a trans person at all because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want.” Mulvaney told Forbes last October she hopes companies will learn from the “hate and vitriol” she experienced and stay away from “performative” marketing campaigns, but instead be allies, saying in an interview that “supporting and hiring trans people should not be political.”

Tangent

Bud Light has attempted to bounce back from its 2023 slump, unveiling a Super Bowl commercial with appearances by two-time NFL Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning, singer Post Malone and Dana White, the Trump-supporting CEO of UFC. Bud Light also launched a partnership with comedian Shane Gillis, who raised eyebrows after anti-Asian and homophobic videos surfaced of him in 2019, and will advertise at the recently opened Las Vegas Sphere ahead of the Super Bowl.