Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has directed his administration to investigate whether Bud Light’s parent company breached its duties to shareholders as a conservative backlash over the beer brand’s deal with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney continues to rage.
DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, directed Lamar Taylor, the interim executive secretary of the state board of administration, to immediately initiate a review “of how AB InBev’s conduct has impacted and will continue to impact the value of the SBAs.” AB InBev stocks.”
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“It appears to me that AB InBev may have failed to meet its statutory obligations to its shareholders and that a shareholder action may be both appropriate and necessary,” DeSantis wrote in a letter tweeted on Friday.
“All options are on the table,” he added.
AB InBev shares are down more than 2% this year while the broader market is rising.
Bud Light sales have plummeted amid Conservative uproar and a boycott over the Mulvaney partnership. Last month, the beer lost its top spot in the US beer market constellation marksAccording to data from consulting firm Bump Willams, Modelo Especial holds 8.7% of all beer sales, while Bud Light holds 7%.
The company also noted that Bud Light sales are down about 25% year over year. The company’s stock fell from $66 a share to $58 a share in the wake of the boycott. DeSantis said Florida owns $53 million in AB InBev stock.
“Anheuser-Busch InBev takes our responsibilities to our shareholders, employees, dealers and customers seriously,” a company spokesman said in a statement to CNBC on Friday afternoon.
“We are focused on driving long-term, sustainable growth for them by optimizing our business and offering consumers products to enjoy on any occasion,” the spokesman said.
DeSantis hinted that the investigation could trigger a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders in Florida’s pension funds. “Ultimately, if you go out of business and focus on your social agenda at the expense of hard-working people, there must be penalties,” he said in an interview with Fox News Thursday night.
The governor accused the company of neglecting its stakeholders and retirees by associating itself with “radical social ideologies.”
DeSantis, as trustee, oversees the state board along with the Republican Attorney General and the state Treasurer.
The move against Bud Light is the latest example of DeSantis throwing himself into a controversy over a hot social issue and using his political powers.
The governor is embroiled in a bitter feud Disney, one of its state’s top employers, for more than a year after the company criticized Florida’s controversial bill restricting discussion of gender identity in the classroom. Disney filed a federal lawsuit, charging DeSantis and his allies with political retaliation over the classroom law dispute.
DeSantis, believed to be former President Donald Trump’s main Republican primary rival, has continued campaigning against Disney and other companies he says are promoting a “woke” progressive political ideology.
“We must judiciously manage the funds of Florida’s hard-working law enforcement officers, teachers, firefighters and first responders, in a manner that focuses on increasing revenue and not on subsidizing an ideological agenda by signaling awakened virtue,” he wrote in the letter to Taylor.
DeSantis is a double digit behind Trump in most nationwide polls for the Republican primary. Less than two months into the race, the governor’s campaign is planning a restart, NBC News reported Thursday.
Mulvaney has criticized Bud Light for not standing by her during the boycott. She said she was bullied and intimidated when she became the face of the controversy.
“For months I’ve been afraid to leave my house, I’ve been taunted in public, I’ve been followed and I feel a loneliness I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Mulvaney said last month.
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