It’s time for Anheuser-Busch’s board to ask CEO Brendan Whitworth to step down over his handling of the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco, the company’s former president of sales and distribution Anson Frericks said.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Frericks noted the Independence Day weekend is “make or break,” but “it looks like the battle has already been lost.”
Whitworth’s responses have “predictably weak and indecisive” and he “should have had the wisdom to do weeks ago” what Mulvaney did last week—“cut ties.”
In a video posted on social media, the transgender activist blasted Bud Light for ghosting him: “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse than not hiring a trans person at all.”
Whitworth’s response sticking to the script—that the company “will focus on what we do best – brewing great beer for everyone and earning our place in moments that matter to our consumers,” meant “absolutely nothing,” Frericks argued. And he even bombed an interview he did right before the holiday weekend when he couldn’t even give a decisive answer over whether the company would again partner with Mulvaney.
Why didn’t he do that? According to Frericks, "Because he’s been paralyzed by corporate America’s forced adoption of ‘stakeholder’ capitalism, which preaches to companies about why they must serve activists, politicians, non-governmental organizations and all manner of interests – anyone really apart from their shareholders and customers!"
He continued, "now, large asset managers, otherwise known as ‘The Big Three’ call the shots.
"Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street manage over $20 trillion," Frericks added. "They’re the largest shareholders in most publicly traded companies – and they were also the key architects of ‘stakeholder’ capitalism, with their now infamous ‘diversity and inclusion’ targets. Whitworth and other CEOs like him are their mouthpieces."
But it’s ordinary Americans who are the “real shareholders” and they should demand Whitworth’s resignation.
“Whitworth has clearly shown himself to be incapable of solving the Mulvaney crisis,” Frericks said. “He's had multiple chances and he's failed. It's time he did the right thing and stepped aside to make way for someone capable of righting the sinking Bud Light ship.”