President Donald Trump mocked transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s 2023 Bud Light partnership at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday, claiming the deal cost the beer brand $35 billion in market value. Speaking at the rescheduled event in Washington, Trump referenced Mulvaney’s controversial sponsorship while making a joke aimed at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, saying he thought Collins “had really made it big with a major new sponsorship” before revealing it was actually Mulvaney on the Bud Light can.
“Dylan Mulvaney cost Bud Light $35 billion in market cap,” Trump said, adding that it was “the worst commercial ever made by the way.” He continued, “Think of it, they hired Dylan Mulvaney and their market cap has gone down by $35 billion. Who wrote that commercial?”
The Correspondents’ Dinner had been rescheduled for July 24 after the original April 25 event was cut short by a gunman who opened fire near the security screening area at the Washington Hilton. The second dinner, held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington—a venue formerly owned by Trump—hosted about 700 journalists and government officials with significantly tighter security and fewer guests than the original event.
Mulvaney’s April 2023 Instagram post featuring Bud Light cans during March Madness sparked an immediate conservative backlash. Far-right figures, including Trump ally Kid Rock, led a boycott of Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch, framing the partnership as corporate “wokeness.” The backlash had lasting financial consequences: as of early 2024, Anheuser-Busch had lost approximately $27 billion in market value, according to multiple financial analyses, and Bud Light’s sales declined significantly in the months following the controversy.
Mulvaney later said in a June 2023 interview that Bud Light never reached out to support her during the backlash, leaving her to face what she described as “more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined.” She attempted to pitch an alternative ad campaign featuring a cowboy and a trans person sharing a beer, but the company did not pursue it. In a 2025 interview, Mulvaney reflected on her recovery from the scandal, stating she had become “a thousand times stronger” since the controversy.
Trump’s speech at the rescheduled dinner, which lasted more than an hour, touched on multiple topics with jokes and complaints about the media scattered throughout. The event also featured an awkward moment when the Wall Street Journal accepted the Katherine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability for its reporting on Trump’s connection to financier Jeffrey Epstein—coverage that had prompted Trump to file a $20 billion lawsuit against the newspaper and remove it from Air Force One access.
Sources
- People — Trump’s quoted remarks at the Correspondents’ Dinner, details of his attacks on Kaitlan Collins, and context on the Mulvaney-Bud Light partnership
- NY Post — Anheuser-Busch’s $27 billion market value loss following the Mulvaney controversy
- CNN — Anheuser-Busch InBev’s reported $1.4 billion in lost sales due to the boycott
- NPR — Trump’s remarks at the rescheduled Correspondents’ Dinner
- ABC News — Details of the April 2026 shooting incident and the rescheduling of the dinner
- Wikipedia — Background on the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting
