Presidential candidate and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wants Florida to investigate its investments in the company that makes Bud Light because of conservative backlash over a transgender social media influencer marketing the beverage.
DeSantis said Thursday in a letter to the State Board of Administration that “all options are on the table” in its response to Dylan Mulvaney's Instagram post of a video of her opening a Bud Light with her face on the can.
The governor said that due to the the backlash over the post, Anheuser-Busch InBev has suffered sales losses that could affect state investments. He added that the beer manufacturer's “radical social ideologies” have turned Bud Light into a “social pariah” and losses have been “staggering.”
DeSantis has previously made headlines by battling Walt Disney World over its opposition to a Florida law banning discussion of gender identity and sexuality orientation in schools, and has targeted other companies that promote social issues that don’t match his beliefs.
DeSantis, who sits on the adminstration board, asked its executive director, Lamar Taylor, to review the state’s holdings, questioning whether they violate Florida law, and suggested a shareholder action may be needed against the company.
“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,” DeSantis wrote.
Anheuser-Busch InBev didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Immersion In Sight, Sound and Story At Sphere
Live sports and cinematic storytelling meshed earlier this month (9/14) at Sphere, the revolutionary new entertainment venue in Las Vegas. UFC 306, Sphere’s first live sports event, brought mixed martial arts boxing matches together with the world premiere of a film--For Mexico, For All Time--which played out in six 90-second chapters in between the bouts on the UFC pay-per-view card. Each chapter focused on a different period in Mexican history and its influence on shaping Mexican identity. Shown on the massive interior display of Sphere, For Mexico, For All Time was created by filmmaker Carlos López Estrada and produced by Valerie Bush via Antigravity Academy, and co-produced by Nexus Studios. Sound designer, supervising sound editor and lead re-recording mixer Drazen Bosnjak and his team at New York-headquartered Q Department brought their creative and technical wherewithal to For Mexico, For All Time, dovetailing with the sound ensemble at Sphere and indie composer Germaine Franco. They contributed to what turned out to be the highest grossing UFC event of all time, and the highest grossing single event at Sphere, playing before a sold out crowd of 16,024. López Estrada, whose work as writer-director on Raya and the Last Dragon earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film in 2022, described For Mexico, For All Time as “a larger-than-life project,” referring to its size and scope--on varied fronts. For one, Sphere houses the world’s highest resolution LED display coupled with a 167,000 speaker audio system, facilitating an immersive multi-sensory experience. López Estrada’s studio, Antigravity Academy, had a steep learning curve relative to the process of creating and producing a film that... Read More