Ben & Jerry’s stock melts down

It’s Bud Light 2.0. Or more precisely, $2.5 billion.

That’s the drop from its market capitalization before the cookies and cream hit the fan on July 4 after the Vermont-based brand slammed the U.S. over “stolen Indigenous land.” A call to boycott the pint-sized ice cream behemoth quickly followed.

The stock in Unilever PLC, the Dutch owner of Ben & Jerry’s, slipped to $51.31 a share, a 77% drop, at market close Thursday.

The fireworks were off over the Fourth when Ben & Jerry’s posted, “This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it.”

The post is still up. It goes on to state: “We need to start with Mount Rushmore. Long before South Dakota had become a state, long before the faces of four American presidents were blasted into the side of Mount Rushmore, that mountain was known as Tunkasila Sakpe, the Six Grandfathers, to the Lakota Sioux — a holy mountain that rises up from the Black Hills, land they consider sacred.”

The topic has continued to light up social media with posts showing dogs eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, calls for executives to give up their fancy estates, Ben & Jerry’s to turn over stores and some suggestions you can’t print in a family newspaper. Many also reference the Bud Light fiasco with Dylan Mulvaney.

Bud Light is now no longer America’s top beer. That position belongs to Modelo.

It’s too early to say if Ben & Jerry’s will feel the same chill.

Some have argued that Ben & Jerry’s Vermont headquarters is itself built on what it describes as “stolen” land of the Abenaki tribe — prompting questions as to whether it would give the property up and move elsewhere.

“What’s stopping you? Go ahead — give up all your property,” Dan Crenshaw, a GOP congressman for Texas responded to the company’s call. “It would be easy to do, so why aren’t you doing it?”

Sandra Kent contributed.