Corporations rang in LGBT Pride Month on a somewhat subdued note on the heels of recent boycotts that have cost brands like Anheuser-Busch and Target billions of dollars in market value over the past several weeks.
Nevertheless, there is still a groundswell of support for catering to the LGBT community among many companies — even if such marketing turns off a large portion of their customer base.
According to former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks, the impetus for this trend can be found in the deep pockets of politicians and investment management groups. During a recent Fox News Channel appearance, he indicated that these well-funded entities essentially pull the strings behind the scenes at various major corporations around the world.
“You just have to follow the money,” he said. “You take a look at BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard — they manage $20 trillion worth of capital.”
In addition to owning significant percentages of companies, these firms also manage huge pension funds, including the nation’s largest in the state of California.
“In California, for example, they recently have mandated those large pension funds that they divest from things like fossil fuels and oil and gas, and then when [former New York City Mayor] Bill de Blasio … was there, he did the same thing.”
Additional requirements, Frericks said, involve supporting strategies that amplify what many critics call a “woke” corporate agenda.
Fmr. Anheuser-Busch Exec. on How BlackRock, State Street, & Vanguard Force Companies to Go Woke
“Citizens should be able to decide these things through free and fair elections, not necessarily with a small group of asset managers and CEOs that are telling individuals how to live… pic.twitter.com/DmnZUVwJKO
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) June 4, 2023
“The Big Three began to issue guidelines on how they expected their portfolio companies to honor this ‘commitment’ by implementing so-called Environmental, Social, and Governance, or ESG, targets, and scores,” he wrote in a recent op-ed for the Daily Mail. “To encourage compliance, the Big Three uses their power as shareholders to influence who sits on corporate boards.”
It all stems from the leftist politicians and bureaucrats who “also tell BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard if they’re going to manage their monty, they have to commit to things like ESG — diversity, equity, inclusion — and adopt firm-wide commitments that they therefore then force onto all the major companies in corporate America.”
He cited the trend of companies effectively lecturing their own customers about “how to live their lives” as his motivation to leave his position at Anheuser-Busch.”
Even though a widely panned marketing partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney led to a massive boycott of Bud Light, its parent company has yet to offer a clear apology — despite taking a $27 billion hit to its market value since the controversy began and seeing a 4% decline in its stock price over just the course of the past week.
