Donald Trump published a rant on Tuesday asking his supporters to give Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Bud Light, a “second chance” after conservatives loudly boycotted the brand for its brief partnership with transgender social media star Dylan Mulvaney—but he left out one important piece of information.
The former president appears to own a sizable pile of the company’s stock, Federal Election Commission records show. Documents certified last October show Trump holds as much as $5 million dollars of Anheuser-Busch Inbev stock, raising questions about the ethics of his apparent endorsement of the company.
“The Bud Light ad was a mistake of epic proportions, and for that a very big price was paid, but Anheuser-Busch is not a Woke company,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
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The “ad” Trump is referring to was actually a short-lived sponsorship deal the company rolled out in April 2023 with Mulvaney, which amounted to a single video the influencer posted to her social media profiles. The deal, however, drew intense ire from anti-LGBTQ conservatives who claimed the company had alienated them by working with a transgender woman.
Sales of Bud Light plummeted as a result, the parent company’s stock value crashed, and two marketing executives were placed on leave. To this day, Bud Light remains a running joke on Fox News and in other right-wing publications.
But Trump doesn’t seem to agree with the company’s reputation among his supporters, and listed all the ways he believes it’s a “Great American Brand.”
“Anheuser-Busch spends $700 Million a year with our GREAT Farmers, employ 65 thousand Americans, of which 1,500 are Veterans, and is a Founding Corporate Partner of Folds of Honor, which provides Scholarships for families of fallen Servicemen & Women. They’ve raised over $30,000,000 and given 44,000 Scholarships,” Trump wrote.
“Anheuser-Busch is a Great American Brand that perhaps deserves a Second Chance? What do you think?” Trump asked. “Perhaps, instead, we should be going after those companies that are looking to DESTROY AMERICA.”
Following his apparent endorsement of Anheuser Busch, Trump also teased a list of so-called “woke” companies he was compiling, promising that he “might just release it for the World to see.”
“Why not, the Radical Left does it viciously to well run, Conservative companies - and people! Very nasty, but it’s the way they play the game!” he added.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Until now, Trump had remained eerily silent during the right-wing backlash and subsequent boycott of Bud Light, declining to weigh in publicly on his followers’ war against the onetime best-selling beer brand in America.
According to the former president’s most recent financial disclosure forms, Trump owns between $1 million and $5 million in Anheuser-Busch stock—an investment that has netted him somewhere between $30,000 and 100,000 in interest.
Last week, Bud Light announced a new sponsorship with comedian Shane Gillis, who was fired shortly after joining the cast of Saturday Night Live for alleged racist remarks.
Gillis’s partnership, Trump’s endorsement, and the lead up to its Super Bowl commercial this weekend highlights Bud Light’s attempts to rebrand itself post-controversy, and boost its sales—which are still down 30 percent.
Roger Sollenberger contributed to this report.
