NYT or Onion?
Amazon Has Lots of Company as Trump Slams ‘Stupid’ Businesses
Most presidents have clashed with business interests and industries, sometimes in ways that generated headlines. But Mr. Trump is unique in singling out individual companies for ridicule with regularity. And rarely have presidents done so because of a personal pique or grudge, as happens with Mr. Trump.
“This is an unprecedented situation for companies. The president’s tweets can cause significant reputational harm,” said Dean C. Garfield, the president of the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents big technology companies like Amazon, Dell, Facebook, Google and IBM. “We are now at a place where about 90 percent of the companies we represent now have a presidential Twitter strategy in place.”
“It’s no laughing matter,” he said.
For many companies, that strategy comes down to waiting out the storm. In recent days, Amazon has all but ignored the president’s taunts, which he issued in a flurry of tweets.
“There’s no real advantage going toe-to-toe with him,” said Joe Lockhart, a press secretary for President Bill Clinton who was a spokesman for the National Football League, another favorite target of Mr. Trump. “And his attention span is so short, he will move on. He’ll find another target.”