Ron DeSantis Threatens to Invoke Legal Action to Keep Bud Light Controversy—and Himself—Relevant

Content warning: Transphobia

Pride month ended almost a month ago and most corporations have moved on from their largely superficial, pinkwashed commitment to the LGBTQ+ community—but for some reason, a faction of conservatives is still fixated on Bud Light’s Pride month promotions. 

For those just tuning in, Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney of TikTok fame to promote its #EasyCarryContest this past April. The company created a custom beer can just for Mulvaney and released a line of cans featuring a rainbow, various pronouns, and the words “Celebrate everyone’s identity.”

In late May, Bud Light released rainbow aluminum beer bottles, with a fraction of the proceeds going to support LGBTQ+ advocacy non-profit GLAAD.

Bud Light and InBev parent company Anheuser-Busch have, per its website, been committed to LGBTQ+ allyship for two decades. “Anheuser-Busch has a strong track record of industry leadership in supporting the LGBTQ+ community,” the site reads. “Over the past 20 years Anheuser-Busch has supported both local and national non-profit organizations that are committed to advocating for LGBTQ+ equality.”

But, for some reason, this year’s Pride marketing strategy was especially enraging to an extremely vocal and committed transphobic camp, with many posting videos of themselves destroying Bud Light cans. Kid Rock even shared a video on Instagram in which he destroys cases of the beer with a semi-automatic rifle. 

Perhaps hypocritically, Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock ‘n’ Roll Steakhouse—the humble name of the country artist’s dining establishment—still sells Bud Light and Bud Light Lime.

So, to summarize, a company created a limited-edition product and partnered with a trans woman to market this product. Not a crime. Right?

Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis apparently thinks otherwise. On Thursday, DeSantis announced via Fox News that he had asked the Florida State Board Administration to divest from Anheuser-Busch. He also wants to investigate any “fiduciary duty” shirking by Bud Light and InBev, another Anheuser-Busch brewing company. 

On Friday, DeSantis reiterated these intentions via Twitter, sharing a letter he wrote to Florida’s State Board of Administration’s Interim Executive Director Lamar Taylor. Pending the results of the investigation, DeSantis has implied his intentions to take legal action.

He claims that Anheuser-Busch’s “flailing” stock prices are a product of the company’s placement of its social agenda over its business goals. Which is weird because Anheuser-Busch stock actually seems to be climbing—and the price per share is actually higher today than it was during a dip in early February, long before the Pride promotions launched. 

After two decades’ reign as the top-selling beer in the U.S., Bud Light is now only the second-best-selling beer in the U.S. by about a one percent margin. 

What’s more is that Florida state investments in Anheuser-Busch add up to about $50 million—which is only about 0.0278 percent of the state’s total pension fund. 

So, why is he so fixated on this one company’s “fiduciary duty” to Florida? The answer is obviously transphobia, but it’s more than that. DeSantis wants any company to be afraid to ally with the LGBTQ+ community.

“All options are on the table and woke corporations that put ideology ahead of returns should be on notice,” DeSantis wrote on Twitter on Friday.

This stance is particularly dangerous because this news comes one day after a national poll was released stating that DeSantis is tied for second place in the GOP nomination.

However, Friday morning, politicians, lawyers, and voters alike took to Twitter to accuse DeSantis of squandering Florida retirees’ pensions on the Bud Light investigation. With no real legal basis for a case of any kind, hopefully, once the investigation closes, we will finally hear the end of this “controversy.”

(featured image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)