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Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand, has stepped down from the company he started 47 years ago citing a retreat from its campaigning spirit under parent company Unilever.

Greenfield wrote in an open letter late Tuesday night — shared on X by his co-founder Ben Cohen — that he could no longer ‘in good conscience’ remain an employee of the company and said the company had been ‘silenced.’

He said the company’s values and campaigning work on ‘peace, justice, and human rights’ allowed it to be ‘more than just an ice cream company’ and said the independence to pursue this was guaranteed when Anglo-Dutch packaged food giant Unilever bought the brand in 2000 for $326 million.

Cohen’s statement didn’t mention Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, but Ben & Jerry’s has been outspoken on the treatment of Palestinians for years and in 2021 withdrew sales from Israeli settlements in what it called ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory.’

Greenfield’s resignation comes five months after Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit accusing Unilever of firing its chief executive, David Stever, over his support for the brand’s political activism. In November last year Ben & Jerry’s filed another lawsuit accusing Unilever of silencing its public statements in support of Palestinian refugees.

‘It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone,’ Greenfield said.

‘And it’s happening at a time when our country’s current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community,’ he added.

Richard Goldstein, the then president of Unilever Foods North America, said in a statement after the sale in 2000 that Unilever was ‘in an ideal position to bring the Ben & Jerry’s brand, values and socially responsible message to consumers worldwide.’

But now Greenfield claims Ben & Jerry’s ‘has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.’ He said he would carry on campaigning on social justice issues outside the company.

The financial performance of the Ben & Jerry’s brand isn’t made public but Unilever’s ice cream division made 8.3 billion Euros ($9.8 billion) in revenue in 2024. Unilever is in the process of spinning off its ice cream division, however, into a separate entity which involves cutting some 7,500 jobs across its brands globally.

Cohen and Greenfield founded the business in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, where it is still based.

NBC News has contacted Unilever for comment overnight but had not received any at the time of publication.

Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand, has stepped down from the company he started 47 years ago citing a retreat from its campaigning spirit under parent company Unilever.

Greenfield wrote in an open letter late Tuesday night — shared on X by his co-founder Ben Cohen — that he could no longer ‘in good conscience’ remain an employee of the company and said the company had been ‘silenced.’

He said the company’s values and campaigning work on ‘peace, justice, and human rights’ allowed it to be ‘more than just an ice cream company’ and said the independence to pursue this was guaranteed when Anglo-Dutch packaged food giant Unilever bought the brand in 2000 for $326 million.

Cohen’s statement didn’t mention Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, but Ben & Jerry’s has been outspoken on the treatment of Palestinians for years and in 2021 withdrew sales from Israeli settlements in what it called ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory.’

Greenfield’s resignation comes five months after Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit accusing Unilever of firing its chief executive, David Stever, over his support for the brand’s political activism. In November last year Ben & Jerry’s filed another lawsuit accusing Unilever of silencing its public statements in support of Palestinian refugees.

‘It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone,’ Greenfield said.

‘And it’s happening at a time when our country’s current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community,’ he added.

Richard Goldstein, the then president of Unilever Foods North America, said in a statement after the sale in 2000 that Unilever was ‘in an ideal position to bring the Ben & Jerry’s brand, values and socially responsible message to consumers worldwide.’

But now Greenfield claims Ben & Jerry’s ‘has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.’ He said he would carry on campaigning on social justice issues outside the company.

The financial performance of the Ben & Jerry’s brand isn’t made public but Unilever’s ice cream division made 8.3 billion Euros ($9.8 billion) in revenue in 2024. Unilever is in the process of spinning off its ice cream division, however, into a separate entity which involves cutting some 7,500 jobs across its brands globally.

Cohen and Greenfield founded the business in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, where it is still based.

NBC News has contacted Unilever for comment overnight but had not received any at the time of publication.

A group of the country’s top economic leaders, including every living former Federal Reserve chair, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Thursday in support of Fed governor Lisa Cook, who President Donald Trump is seeking to remove.

The group, led former central bank chiefs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, said that “allowing the removal of Governor Lisa D. Cook while the challenge to her removal is pending would threaten that independence and erode public confidence in the Fed.”

The bipartisan group, which also includes former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Jack Lew and Timothy Geithner, added that “the independence of the Federal Reserve, within the limited authority granted by Congress to achieve the goals Congress itself has set, is a critical feature of our national monetary system.”

As the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve is part of the U.S. government and its leaders are put in place by elected officials, but it also retains a considerable amount of independence that is meant to allow it to make decisions purely out of economic concerns rather than political ones.

The former economic officials said that an erosion of Fed independence could result “in substantial long-term harm and inferior economic performance overall.”

The Supreme Court is considering whether Trump has the authority to fire Cook, who has been a target for the White House for weeks as part of a broader pressure campaign to push the Fed to more aggressively cut interest rates.

Cook’s attempted removal stems from allegations of mortgage fraud, made in August by top Trump ally and Federal Housing Finance Authority Director Bill Pulte.

Cook has repeatedly denied the allegations and has not been charged with any crime. Documents reviewed by NBC News in mid-September appeared to contradict Pulte’s allegations.

Two courts have so far blocked Cook’s removal, leading Trump to ask the Supreme Court a week ago to allow him to fire her. In a court filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said a judge’s ruling that blocked the firing constituted “improper judicial interference.”

In a filing to the Supreme Court on Thursday, Cook’s lawyers said that ‘she committed neither ‘fraud’ nor ‘gross negligence’ in relation to her mortgages.’

Cook asked the court to deny Trump’s attempt to remove her while the case is argued.

The White House has repeatedly maintained that Trump “lawfully removed Lisa Cook for cause.”

The brief filed Thursday is a who’s who of the country’s top economic minds. Former Fed governor Dan Tarullo is also listed as a signatory to the brief, as well as the economists Ken Rogoff, Phil Gramm and John Cochrane.

Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, Christina Romer, Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein and Jason Furman, a group who served as top officials on the White House’s council of economic advisers during Republican and Democrat administrations, also signed the brief.

None of the officials who signed the filing have served in either of Trump’s administrations.

Trump is the first president in U.S. history to try to remove a sitting Fed official.

‘There is broad consensus among economists, based on decades of macroeconomic research, that a more independent central bank will lead to lower and more stable inflation without creating higher unemployment — thus helping to achieve the Federal Reserve’s statutory objective of price stability and maximum employment,’ the officials said in the brief.

‘The Federal Reserve walks a careful line in pursuit of its goals.’

They noted that ‘elected officials often favor lowering interest rates to boost employment, particularly leading up to an election.’

‘Although that approach may satisfy voters temporarily, it does not lead to lasting gains for unemployment or growth and can instead lead to persistently higher inflation in the long-term and thus ultimately harm the national economy.’

The former Fed chairs and economic officials, in their filing, highlight a notorious case of political pressure on the Fed:

‘In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon famously exerted political pressure over then-Chair of the Fed Arthur Burns to lower unemployment by reducing interest rates. During this period ‘the Fed made only limited efforts to maintain policy independence and, for doctrinal as well as political reasons, enabled a decade of high and volatile inflation.’ This contributed to an ‘inflationary boom’ and deep recession that took years to bring back under control.’