Twitter Left Out In Trump’s Tech Meeting; Too Small To Be Invited Or Payback For Failed Emoji?

During US President-elect Donald Trump’s meeting with technology company executives last Dec. 14, Twitter’s Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey was noticeably absent. Speculations came out that Dorsey was not really invited to the meeting.

According to Fortune, Trump’s team think that Twitter is just “too small” to be invited. The transition official said that "they weren't invited because they aren't big enough.”

As reported, Twitter’s market capitalization of $13.85 billion is not enough since it is smaller than Facebook and Amazon. The smallest company in attendance was Tesla with a market capitalization of $31.92 billion.

What happened was quite unexpected given how Trump actively used Twitter during the campaign period. Trump’s political discussions were also very evident on Twitter. Twitter’s platform played a huge part in order for Trump to openly and quickly discuss his agenda and issues to millions of voters.

However, The Hill reported that Republican National Committee’s chief strategist and communications director Sean Spicer excluded Twitter from the said meeting in New York as payback for Dorsey’s refusal to create the emoji for “#Crooked Hillary.” The said emoji was supposed to be a picture with small bags of money that seems to be given away or stolen.

Twitter rejected the $5 million deal. In Twitter’s defense, they did not accept the offer because they do not want to have the wrong interpretation of it. For people to think that the campaign paid for it.

Spicer though was quick to deny the controversy. He said that the omission of invitation to Dorsey had nothing to do with the emoji.

As Spicer explained further that, “This is an initial list of people who got together who wanted to sit down with Mr. Trump, talk about his general take, his vision, how what they are doing in Silicon Valley, in technology, could fit into that.” He also said that it is possible for Dorsey to attend other follow-up meetings.

Meanwhile, Jobs & Hire reported last October that Twitter continues to face some financial problems to a point that they need to cut down hundreds of jobs.

Real Time Analytics