Unilever stock loses $2B amid calls to boycott Ben & Jerry’s over tweet
Ben & Jerry’s parent company has lost nearly $2 billion in market cap amid calls to boycott the Vermont-based ice cream maker over a July 4 tweet condemning the US for existing on “stolen Indigenous land.”
Shares of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational firm, slid 0.8% Thursday after closing down 0.5% the previous day.
The company’s stock price has closed Thursday at $51.31, nearly $1 below its closing price of $52.28 during Monday’s shortened trading — and the day before Ben & Jerry’s posted its unpatriotic tweet.
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Ben & Jerry’s co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are under fire after they failed to come up with a reason why they refuse to sell their ice cream in parts of Israel over political disagreements but do business in areas of the United States where they disagree with laws and policies.
The progressive ice cream company has been vocal about social justice issues and announced earlier this year they will no longer be selling their desserts in “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Cohen and Greenfield, who no longer technically control the company but remain its public faces, appeared on “Axios on HBO” Sunday, where Axios’ Alexi McCammond asked why they don’t just remove their ice cream from Israel altogether.
“Well, I disagree with the U.S. policy, we couldn’t stop selling in the U.S.,” Cohen said as he shrugged…