Skip to content

Wednesday, Apr. 7, 2021

Did PepsiCo give $100 million to Black Lives Matter?

Sarah Thompson, Lead Stories
no

In summer 2020 several large corporations pledged large sums of money to racial equality initiatives. False rumors that circulated in summer 2020 and were debunked at that time resurfaced in March 2021.

A claim that PepsiCo gave $100 million to BLM is not backed up by publicly available information. PepsiCo issued a press release in June 2020 outlining PepsiCo's "Journey To Racial Equality," promising to invest more than $400 million over five years to address issues of inequality and to create opportunity.

PepsiCo printed the words "Black Lives Matter" in bold lettering at the bottom of an infographic explaining how those millions were to be spent. This is a statement, not a PepsiCo pledge to The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. 

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.