Shareholder Sues Target Over 'Billions' Lost After Pride Campaign Backlash

By Brandon Poulter August 9, 2023 at 7:35am

America First Legal (AFL), a legal activist group, sued the Target Corporation and its board of directors on behalf of a Target shareholder, alleging the company misled shareholders and lost investors billions, according to a new lawsuit.

Target announced a Pride collection in May 2023 that marketed LGBTQ-themed clothing to kids including onesies with the transgender flag and LGBTQ-themed books for children which resulted in a boycott of the store and the company’s stock losing billions. The lawsuit alleges that Target’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Environmental, Social and Governance policies (ESG) weren’t designed to benefit all shareholders and only benefited an ideological agenda, ignoring past DEI-related company failures such as Bud Light’s loss in sales due to hiring an LGBTQ ambassador.

/1BREAKING — we filed a shareholder lawsuit against @Target in federal court over its misleading statements to shareholders about monitoring political/social risks, resulting in a $12B loss due to its recent promotion of queer/transgender propaganda to children.

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— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) August 8, 2023

“Target Corporation … betrayed both Target’s core customer base of working families and its investors by making false and misleading statements concerning Target’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates that led to its disastrous 2023 children-and-family themed LGBTQ Pride campaign,” the lawsuit reads.

“Target’s now infamous children-and-family-themed LGBT-‘Pride’ marketing and sales campaign—which embroiled Target in the culture war and caused Target to experience the biggest stock decline in the company’s history, costing investors billions,” the lawsuit continues.

Bud Light experienced a similar backlash when it sent Dylan Mulvaney, well-known trans influencer, a personalized Bud Light can and made Mulvaney a brand ambassador, which resulted in the company losing billions. For the week ending July 22, the Anheuser-Busch brand’s sales dipped nearly 27%, and Anheuser-Busch has had to sell off multiple brands.

“In its 2022 and 2023 Proxy Statements, Target assured shareholders and investors that the Board was monitoring for social and political issues and risks arising from the company’s ESG and DEI mandates. However, management only cared whether its leftist ‘stakeholders’ were satisfied,” a press release from AFL reads.

Target did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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