TheQuartering [4/14/2023]
Anheuser-Busch’s top executive on Friday offered an apology flatter than a day-old Bud Light as the beer giant reels from the backlash over its sponsorship deal with controversial transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Brendan Whitworth said in press release titled “Our Responsibility To America.”
“We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
Whitworth finally broke his silence over the brewing controversy but made no mention of the sponsorship deal with Mulvaney — which has led to calls for a boycott of the nation’s largest beer company.
He also didn’t address reports that senior executives were kept in the dark about the Mulvaney rollout.
Instead, Whitworth said he was “focused on building and protecting our remarkable history and heritage.”
“Moving forward, I will continue to work tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers across our nation,” said Whitworth, a Harvard Business School graduate who served in the Marines and was a CIA officer.
The $132 billion beer company has seen its market value plummet by some $5 billion since the campaign was launched April 1.
Busch distributors around the country have been feeling the fallout, with many bars in conservative states from Tennessee to Wyoming refusing to stock Bud Light.
“I simply don’t understand why they hired the person who was doing the marketing. I mean, if your target customer is Kid Rock, and then all of a sudden you decide to go to RuPaul, that just doesn’t make any sense at all,” Oxygen Financial CEO Ted Jenkin told Fox News Digital.