Bud Light, Nike trans activist partnership is the worst kind of ‘woke capitalism,’ says Vivek Ramaswamy

The GOP presidential candidate discusses Anheuser-Busch and Nike’s promotion of Dylan Mulvaney.

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is wading into the controversy surrounding Bud Light and Nike's recent partnerships with a trans activist, citing it as an example of large corporations' consistent push to engage in "the worst kind of woke capitalism," even if it means pushing away established customers.  

"This, to me, is a case of a company that's clearly not following its financial self-interest," Ramaswamy said. "Sometimes you could make an argument that a company does something totally woke because that's what its customer base wants to see. Oftentimes, that's even debatable. In the case of Bud Light, that's just wrong."

Anheuser-Busch, the company behind Bud Light, recently sent specialized cans of the popular beer to trans activist and TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, featuring the influencer's face. The cans included printed text that celebrated her first "365 Days of Girlhood."

BUD LIGHT SAYS PACT WITH TRANS ACTIVIST DYLAN MULVANEY HELPS ‘AUTHENTICALLY CONNECT WITH AUDIENCES’

A picture of the commemorative Bud Light can featuring TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney.  (Dylan Mulvaney/Instagram)

Less than a week later, Mulvaney received a paid partnership with Nike and took to social media to model the company's leggings and sports bras in a series of videos.

Many Twitter users claimed the partnerships were an attempt to push radical gender propaganda.

Conservative social media user James Lindsay went viral after he posted a thread suggesting the companies were forced to engage with Mulvaney to maintain a high score with the Corporate Equality Index (CEI). CEI is a national benchmarking tool from the Human Rights