CLAIM: The CEO of Anheuser-Busch resigned after the brewing company’s Bud Light beer brand partnered with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender social media influencer, for a sponsored video.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The claim started as a satirical article and used the wrong name in references to the CEO. Anheuser-Busch confirmed that the company’s CEO didn’t resign.
THE FACTS: After Mulvaney released a video with Bud Light, coinciding with the final days of the NCAA’s March Madness tournament, some conservative social media personalities and celebrities responded with transphobic rhetoric and calls to boycott the brand.
However, these attacks haven’t resulted in the resignation of the CEO of Bud Light’s parent company, as many social media users have claimed.
The claims spread across the internet in an article with the headline, “Anheuser Busch CEO Resigns As Bud Light Sales Plummet To Record Low.”
The story referred to a “CEO Augustus Anheuser III” and claims he “left the corporate headquarters in shame after tendering his resignation.”
But a search for the text of the article shows it originated as satire. It appeared on a satirical website that discloses it publishes “parody, satire, and tomfoolery.” Some other blogs reposted the same text without the disclaimer, and social media users spread the claim as real news.
The story also has errors that make it clear it was fabricated.
For example, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO is named Brendan Whitworth, not Augustus Anheuser III, who isn’t...
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