Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth was slammed online late this week over a statement he made in response to the company’s partnership with controversial transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” Whitworth said in a statement Friday. “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
The statement did not make mention of Mulvaney, transgenderism — or offer an apology to offended customers.
The statement seemed to worsen the situation for Anheuser-Busch as those on the political Left appeared to be angered over it.
“Genuinely would love to sit down [with] the person who wrote this because I have never seen so many words mean absolutely nothing at all,” one left-wing account tweeted.
Transgender activist Charlotte Clymer tweeted: “This statement by Anheuser-Busch ultimately says nothing, and it also says everything. After two weeks of violent rhetoric over a trans woman drinking Bud Light, the CEO is basically saying, without saying it: ‘We understand why you’re upset we validated trans people.’”
NBC News blogger Ben Collins complained: “Bud Light caves to a mob that was shooting at and running over its product for giving a one-minute sponsored Instagram post to a trans person.”
Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro responded to Collins’ tweet: “I like how Bud Light issuing an absolutely meaningless statement is transphobic now.”
“This is the single funniest corporate statement of all time,” political commentator Sonny Bunch tweeted. “Not only will it satisfy no one on either side, it’ll be insanely confusing to anyone who doesn’t understand what the statement is about. A-plus work by the InBev team.”
Commentator Clifton Duncan wrote, “Having already incurred the wrath of their core consumers, they know that apologizing for using Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador will incur the wrath of ‘Progressive’ activists. This is a frightened CEO, cowed into addressing the issue, but saying nothing. What a disaster.”
Christina Pushaw, rapid response director on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ political team, responded to the statement by saying the company should just be focused on their product.
“How about … just selling beer? Corporations should focus on their business instead of social engineering,” she said. “Also, this statement didn’t include a word about the actual controversy. Keep up the boycott — it’s noticed. We need to keep making woke virtue signaling costly for them.”
Political consultant Noah Pollak tweeted, “The real problem at Budweiser is contempt for the customer. That’s what their woke marketing is, and it’s what this unbelievably pretentious and condescending statement is.”
Daily Wire podcast host Matt Walsh tweeted: “The Bud Light boycott has been by far one the most successful conservative efforts to push back against corporate wokeism we’ve ever seen. By very wary of any conservative who is naysaying this. We’re actually making a dent and they’re complaining. Remember that.”
The CEO’s statement came nearly two weeks after Mulvaney appeared in an April 1 video showing off Bud Light cans with his face on them. Initially, there was confusion as to whether the April Fool’s Day announcement from Mulvaney was even real because Bud Light’s official social media pages and press page made no mention of a partnership with him.
But Bud Light confirmed and defended its partnership with Mulvaney on April 3, saying that the custom beer cans were a “gift” for Mulvaney’s personal milestone, a reference to the 365 days Mulvaney has gone posting videos in make-up and women’s clothing.
While sources familiar with the matter later claimed to The Daily Wire that “no one at the senior level” of the company was aware of Bud Light’s polarizing partnership with Mulvaney, the company’s vice president of marketing recently touted her mandate to make the brand more “inclusive.”
Last week, the company issued a statement confirming the partnership and describing it as an attempt to “authentically connect with audiences across various demographics and passion points.”
The marketing stunt appears to have cost the company $5 billion in market value this week, and the backlash to the iconic American beer brand has been so intense that a Budweiser distributor in Missouri canceled an event with the company’s famous Clydesdale horses because everything was “still sensitive” over the matter.
Major conservative figures, including Kid Rock, Matt Walsh, Travis Tritt, John Rich, and Tucker Carlson, have been relentless in their criticism of Bud Light, and it’s not clear if the CEO’s recent statement will do anything to address their concerns.
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