FACT CHECK: Did PepsiCo Donate $100 Million To Antifa?
A viral Facebook post shared over 1,100 times claims Pepsi donated $100 million to antifa.
Verdict: False
Pepsi never donated $100 million to antifa, according to a PepsiCo spokesperson. The claim may stem from the false claim that the company donated the same amount of money to Black Lives Matter.
Fact Check:
The Facebook post claims Pepsi donated $100 million to antifa. Antifa, which is short for anti-fascist, is an “umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations,” according to The Associated Press.
There is no evidence, however, that antifa received $100 million from the company. Had Pepsi had made such a large donation to antifa, media outlets would have covered it, yet none have. A wider internet search on DuckDuckGo and Google also did not yield any results.
Check Your Fact likewise searched Pepsi’s website, press releases and its verified social media accounts, but found no mention of the company donating such a large sum of money to antifa. A PepsiCo spokesperson confirmed to Check Your Fact in a phone call that the company never made a $100 million donation to antifa. (RELATED: Did PepsiCo Give $100 Million To Black Lives Matter)
Antifa, since it is not a singular organization, does not have a lot of money at its disposal, according to Mark Bray, historian and author of the “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.”
“Like most anarchist, anti-authoritarian or radical groups, antifa organizations don’t have much money at their disposal,” Bray wrote in a September 2020 Washington Post article. “What they do have generally comes from members or occasional solidarity fundraisers. Unlike political parties, unions or nongovernmental organizations, they don’t require significant funds.”
Pepsi did commit $400 million over five years to “lift up Black communities and Black representation at PepsiCo” in June 2020, according to a press release from PepsiCo. PepsiCo pledged those funds after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in Minneapolis police custody in late May 2020.
The claim may have stemmed from another inaccurate claim which said Pepsi donated $100 million to Black Lives Matter. Check Your Fact previously debunked that claim in August 2020.