Beer brand Miller Lite is owned by Molson Coors Beverage Co, not Anheuser-Busch InBev. Posts online sharing a Miller Lite campaign video from March falsely claim the brand is owned by AB InBev.
In April, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s sponsorship with Bud Light, a beer brand owned by Anheuser-Busch triggered a conservative backlash (here).
A March 7 campaign video from Miller Lite (here), (here) also received some conservative criticism online (here).
Miller Lite saw the Bud Light disaster and decided they needed their own woke beer ad. These companies are broken & have no idea who actually consumes their products: pic.twitter.com/k9RKWVLJRF
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 15, 2023
Some critical online posts conflated the two ad campaigns, including a tweet that said: “SHOCK: AB InBev not satisfied destroying its Bud Lite brand is now working hard to destroy its Miller Lite brand. Go woke, go broke” (here). Another example (here).
SHOCK: AB InBev not satisfied destroying its Bud Lite brand is now working hard to destroy its Miller Lite brand. Go woke, go broke. pic.twitter.com/ztneOwOhXI
— @amuse (@amuse) May 15, 2023
However, Miller Lite is not included in lists of beer brands on the AB InBev or Anheuser-Busch sites (www.ab-inbev.com/our-brands/) and (www.anheuser-busch.com/brands),
AB InBev acquired SABMiller in 2016. But as part of the acquisition, the U.S. Department of Justice required AB InBev to divest SABMiller’s entire U.S. business and to sell its ownership stake in MillerCoors to Molson Coors (here), (here), (here).
An Anheuser-Busch spokesperson confirmed that Miller Lite is not part of its brand portfolio. A Molson Coors spokesperson said the company is separate from AB InBev and confirmed Miller Lite beer is a Molson Coors brand.
VERDICT
False. Miller Lite beer is owned by Molson Coors Beverage Co, not Anheuser-Busch InBev.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts (here).