Donald Trump — the man who will one day be in charge of formulating policy, as well as directing the FBI, CIA and NSA — excluded his favorite medium of communication from a roundtable with tech giants because he was reportedly holding a grudge about not being able to get away with a campaign stunt.
Back in November, the Trump campaign wanted to develop a "crooked Hillary Clinton" emoji, which The Sun described as a giant bag of cash with angel wings. That, of course, is hilariously ironic, considering Trump's cabinet appointments all come from the "highest-paid" and "most donations" list. But it was a no-go for Twitter, which said in a statement: “We believe that political advertising merits a level of disclosure and transparency that branded political emojis do not meet, and we ultimately decided not to permit this particular format for any political advertising.”
The Trump team held that against the tech company, according to Politico, denying them a spot at the table in an important meeting, according to Politico:
Twitter was one of the few major U.S. tech companies not represented at Wednesday afternoon's Trump Tower meeting attended by, among others, Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and Tesla's Elon Musk — an omission all the more striking because of Trump's heavy dependence on the Twitter platform. With some 17.3 million followers of his account, the president-elect has made Twitter into the de facto press channel of his transition operation.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said that Twitter was cut out because "the conference table was only so big." Trump's table had room for his three children, in a remarkable conflict of interest.
At the meeting, Trump told tech executives — whose combined market value was more than $3 trillion — that "I'm here to help you folks do well."
Shares