NPR is making it even easier to track the real-world effects of President Trump's tweets. On Friday, NPR's Planet Money podcast introduced BOTUS, a bot that has the sole duty of monitoring the president's Twitter activity to see how it moves the stock market:
[BOTUS] looks at President Trump's Twitter feed, and when he tweets about a company, it trades stocks, with real money. Because the official Twitter handle of the president of the United States is @POTUS, we named our bot @BOTUS, bot of the United States. There's $1,000 on the line invested by the staff members of the Planet Money podcast from their personal funds. [NPR]
To see whether money is lost or gained when Trump tweets, follow @BOTUS on Twitter. To learn more about the project, listen to the podcast episode below. Becca Stanek