Bud Light owner laid off hundreds of US workers, following months of backlash

• Anheuser-Busch announced it laid off hundreds of US employees, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
• The Bud Light owner has faced months of lagging US sales since April.
• The backlash began after transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a Bud Light promotion. 

Anheuser-Busch, the owner of Bud Light, laid off hundreds of US employees, the company announced Wednesday. The beer company has faced lagging sales and backlash after Bud Light’s promotion with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer.

Less than 2% of the beer company’s 18,000 US employees would be impacted, Anheuser-Busch told the WSJ reported, which first reported the layoffs. Corporate and marketing jobs were cut throughout offices in the US, the Journal reported.

Frontline jobs, including in its breweries and warehouses, were not impacted, the company told Insider in a written statement. 

“While we never take these decisions lightly, we want to ensure that our organization continues to be set for future long-term success,” Anheuser-Busch’s US CEO Brendan Whitworth said in a written statement sent to Insider. “These corporate structure changes will enable our teams to focus on what we do best — brewing great beer for everyone.”

The decision follows a months-long plunge in Bud Light sales. Modelo Especial, a Mexican lager company, took the lead in US beer sales in May — taking Bud Light’s sales crown.

Bud Light has been embroiled in backlash since April when Mulvaney posted a Bud Light promotion on her Instagram. The promotion was met with outcry from conservative critics who called for a boycott, while LGBTQ+ advocates called on Anheuser-Busch to stand with the transgender community. 

Many consumers have been unhappy with the brand’s response since then. At the end of June, Mulvaney alleged in a video on her TikTok that Bud Light never reached out to her after the backlash ensued.