Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is urging the state’s pension fund manager to consider legal action against Bud Light’s parent company. It’s the latest attempt by the Republican presidential candidate to inject himself and the state he runs into the country’s culture wars. Sales of Bud Light have plummeted in the months since it entered into a minor partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney that precipitated a boycott from conservatives. The company’s stock price has fallen since then from $66 a share to $58, though it’s still higher than its 52-week low of $44 from September 2022, which was well before the company’s recent controversies. This is not the first time Desantis has threatened to use Florida’s $235 billion in pension investments as a cudgel in his political fights with corporate America. In early 2022, he threatened to hold Twitter shareholders accountable if they didn’t sell the social media company to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The state pension fund held $234 million in Disney stock as of March 31, according to the latest available financial records from the pension board’s website, and $46 million in AB InBev shares at the end of March, valued at nearly $46M. The Associated Press has reached out to AB inBev for comment, but the company has not yet responded to the governor’s request for a comment on his letter to the state pension board. The governor said the state may consider a “derivative lawsuit” against AB Inbev. “We must prudently manage the funds of Florida’s hardworking law enforcement officers, teachers, firefighters, and first responders in a manner that focuses on growing returns, not subsidizing an ideological agenda through woke virtue signaling,” he wrote in the letter to Lamar Taylor, the interim director of the State Board of Administration, the state agency that manages Florida’s retirement funds for public workers. In June, Modelo Especial became the top-selling beer in May, overthrowing Bud Light for more than two decades, accordingto consulting firm NIQ data given to NIQ by Bumpump Williams. “I don’t know that we’d be the right one to do it,” the governor said when asked if he would consider a similar action against Disney. The Republican is currently engaged in two separate lawsuits over the Republican’s move to strip the theme park giant of its longstanding special government powers in Central Florida. He also pushed the state Pension Board to adopt new rules that banned its investors from considering the environmental and social good of a company or fund when deciding where to put Florida’s pension assets, pushing back against the so-called ESG movement. The board is made up of Republicans, including the attorney general and chief financial officer, who are also Republicans. It is unclear what legal recourse the state might have to challenge a multinational corporation’s business decisions. Unlike his war with Disney, conservative outrage against ABInBev came well before DeSantas decided to take action against the Belgium beermaker.
Gov. DeSantis calls for state investment manager to consider action against Bud Light’s parent company. State investment manager could take action against parent company of Bud Light.
