Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sold shares of Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch and bought stock of its rival Molson Coors during a social media boycott of the brand over its controversial advertising partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Financial disclosure forms released by the federal judiciary show that Alito sold between $1,000 and $15,000 of AB InBev stock on Aug. 14 of last year.
On the same day, he bought the same amount of shares in Molson Coors, according to the disclosure report.
The trade doesn’t appear to have been well-timed for Alito.
At the time he sold the stock in Anheuser-Busch InBev, it was worth around $56 a share. As of Monday, the stock was hovering around $66.28 a share.
Shares of Molson Coors were trading at $64.48 when Alito bought the company’s stock last year. Since then, however, its value has dipped.
As of Monday, shares of Molson Coors were trading at just over $55 a share.
At the time of the transactions, social media users were outraged over Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney.
Last April, Mulvaney touted Bud Light to her millions of followers on her social media platforms.
On her Instagram account, she posted a video showing off a custom-made can of Bud Light that included her likeness.
The can was sent to Mulvaney by Bud Light’s marketing team to celebrate “365 Days of Girlhood.” In subsequent social media posts, Mulvaney is seen cracking open a can of Bud Light in honor of the March Madness men’s college basketball tournament.
The social media posts sparked a fierce backlash from conservatives who then called for a boycott, which led to a reported $1 billion in lost sales.
In a recent earnings report, Anheuser-Busch InBev said its US revenue declined 17.3% in the fourth quarter and 9.5% for the full year.
Bud Light, once the nation’s top-selling beer, has had to yield shelf space to upstarts such as Modelo Especial, Coors Light and Miller Lite.
Alito, the 74-year-old Supreme Court justice who was appointed to the bench by then-President George W. Bush in 2005, has been the subject of controversy over his reportedly overt political leanings and activities.
An upside-down American flag, a symbol associated with former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, was displayed outside of his Alexandria, Va. home in January 2021, The New York Times reported.
A photo obtained and published by the newspaper on Thursday shows the flag flying on Jan. 17, 2021, days after the Republican’s supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to prevent certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
Dozens of the pro-Trump rioters were carrying similarly inverted flags and chanting slogans like “Stop the Steal.”
The report could raise concerns about Alito’s impartiality as the court considers two major cases related to the Capitol attack, including charges faced by the rioters and whether Trump has immunity from prosecution on election interference charges.
The justice said the flag was placed there by his wife amid a dispute with neighbors.
With Post Wires
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
