"Two years ago, some of America's largest corporations were tearing up their business plans to accommodate President Trump, fearful that he could send their shareholders and customers fleeing with a tweet," The New York Times notes. "Now they have a new strategy: Ignore him."
Right before he took office, for example, Trump hectored Carrier into (at least temporarily) keeping 1,000 jobs in Indiana it had planned to outsource. Companies hired public relations firms to monitor Trump's Twitter feed and come up with strategies should he shoot a poison tweet their way. This week he told General Motors to reopen a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and GM shrugged and issued a statement that talked about negotiating with the United Auto Workers and didn't mention Trump.
"In the beginning, his tweets would actually hurt stock prices and companies were going into tailspins," Eric Dezenhall, an expert in corporate damage control, told the Times. "There is a clinical difference between what was happening in the beginning and what is happening now." That difference? "Tantrum congestion," he said. In fact, PR firms are urging restraint for the clients because any response could agitate Trump.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Essentially, the Times reports, "the president's scattershot attention span has diminished his power to persuade the business world to bend to his will, corporate communications experts say, as once fearsome tweet storms have devolved into ephemeral annoyances." Trump can still move markets with a tweet about trade with China or the Federal Reserve, for now, the Times adds, but despite "Trump's vast media presence and his popularity among Republicans, he has not demonstrated the ability to do lasting damage to a corporate brand that crosses him." You can read more about Trump's diminishing Twitter returns at The New York Times.
-
Should you add your child to your credit card?The Explainer You can make them an authorized user on your account in order to help them build credit
-
Cracker Barrel crackup: How the culture wars are upending corporate brandingIn the Spotlight Is it 'woke' to leave nostalgia behind?
-
'It's hard to discern what it actually means'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
