Carl Icahn slams McDonald's for putting out 'hollow' responses to 'animal welfare violations'

• Carl Icahn is slamming McDonald's for the continued use of gestation crates for pregnant pigs.
• The billionaire investor has been advocating on the subject for years.

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has penned a letter to McDonald's shareholders slamming the fast-food giant for having "impugned its credibility" by failing to "eliminate usage of cruel gestation crates in its supply chain."

His eight-page open letter, released on Thursday, blasts McDonald's, saying the company has not lived up to its commitment to end the controversial practice of confining pregnant pigs in cramped spaces. McDonald's first agreed in 2012 to eliminate gestation crates, which have been widely criticized as inhumane devices, over a 10-year period.

In February, Icahn threatened to kick off a shareholder fight over the subject. By releasing Thursday's letter and proxy statement, in which he nominated new board members, Icahn has followed through on that promise.

"They are patting themselves on the back, while condoning cruelty – apparently, blind to the writing on the wall," Icahn wrote. "I believe the obscene cruelty inflicted on these animals through confinement is completely needless, reprehensible and misaligned with what Americans expect from our country's No. 1 fast-food chain."

In addition to McDonald's, Icahn also raked "large number of Wall Street firms and their bankers and lawyers," "Big Meat," and the meat industry's "connected lobby" over the coals, saying they espouse "hollow" environmental, social, and governance agendas.

The investor wrote that McDonald's is "misleading customers, employees, and shareholders" by claiming that the company expects to "source 85% to 90%" of its US pork "from sows not housed in gestation crates during pregnancy."

"But that assertion is a cynical fabrication intended to fool us into believing this egregious form of animal abuse in McDonald's' supply chain is largely not occurring," Icahn wrote. "In reality, these sows, who have multiple litters of piglets each year, are confined in gestation crates during each pregnancy for approximately four to six weeks, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

The billionaire wrote that he is calling on McDonald's to cease acting in an "irresponsible and reprehensible manner" and "commit to eliminating gestation crates (zero days in stalls) from its supply chain by the end of 2023" and to expand that goal to its "global supply chain by 2024." He also demanded that the company add new directors to its board.

McDonald's did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

While the pork industry has defended gestation crates as a necessary measure to boost productivity and prevent the pigs from fighting, animal welfare activists have disagreed. In a 2013 report, the Humane Society of the United States stated that these crates take "a psychological toll and impairs" the welfare of pigs.

In his latest letter, Icahn wrote that the crates also impede the animals' "tremendous maternal instinct" and ability to "bond with their babies." He first became aware of the issue through his daughter Michelle, a vegetarian who has worked with the Humane Society.

This isn't the first time that McDonald's has come under fire on animal-welfare grounds. In 2015, McDonald's had to drop a Tennessee supplier where workers were caught on film stomping on chickens. The company also cut ties with a California slaughterhouse under investigation for animal cruelty in 2012, according to the New York Post.

" This grotesque mistreatment of animals – and the Company's inability to make significant progress on promises made to multiple stakeholders in 2012 – clearly stem from dysfunction and indifference in McDonald's' boardroom," Icahn wrote Thursday. "I believe McDonald's' customers want food that is sourced ethically, responsibly and humanely. Gestation crates are none of those."