Donald Trump, everybody knows, loves Diet Coke and drinks it all the time, sometimes as many as a dozen cans a day. During his first term as president, he reportedly had a call button in the Oval Office to summon his next Diet Coke.
However, Trump’s relationship with Coca-Cola, the company, has been more complicated over the years. In 2021, after Georgia passed a restrictive voting law and many companies spoke out against it, Trump called for a boycott of those companies, including Coca-Cola, Delta, and UPS. The boycott, though, appeared half-hearted, as Trump continued to serve Coke products at his properties and was spotted with his customary Diet Cokes numerous times after that.
After the January 6 riot, Coca-Cola issued a statement condemning it, calling the riot “an offense to the ideals of American democracy.”
Coca-Cola’s tweet condemning January 6th https://t.co/5Nt7HzJLsG pic.twitter.com/7rd6FcTll8
— Nick Field (@nick_field90) January 15, 2025
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Four years later, Coca-Cola has changed its tune.
This week, Trump met with the Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Company, James Quincey, where he was presented with “the first-ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”
Tonight, President Trump received the first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle from the Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Company, James Quincey 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/IgV2pxHnxD
— Margo Martin (@margomartin) January 15, 2025
Quincey has been the CEO since 2017 and chairman since 2019, so he was at the helm of Coca-Cola on January 6.
This led to some anger from Coke drinkers who disliked Trump and therefore vowed to launch their own boycott, with some calling for anti-Trump forces to switch to Pepsi. Both Coke and Pepsi, meanwhile, are being boycotted over the Israel-Gaza war.
Others have pointed out that it is not, in fact, the first commemorative Coke bottle for a president, as one was produced for Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2008, with the label calling it a “decades-long tradition.” However, the claim might be semantically true, since Trump’s bottle is a Diet Coke and the others presumably were not.
“The Coca-Cola Company has a tradition of creating commemorative Coca-Cola bottles to celebrate U.S. presidential inaugurations, dating back to 2005. James Quincey, CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, met with President-Elect Donald Trump to present a commemorative bottle of Diet Coke and to highlight Coca-Cola’s contributions to the U.S. economy,” the company said in a statement to Fox News.
It’s another example of business leaders, including Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg who were previously seen as hostile to Trump, “bending the knee” ahead of the new administration’s arrival.
Featured image via screengrab
