Twitter not invited to Trump tech meeting as payback for failed emoji deal

by Ali Breland - 12/14/16 3:44 PM ET

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was not invited to Donald Trump’s summit with major tech leaders Wednesday in retaliation for reneging on a $5 million emoji deal with the president-elect during the campaign, said a source with knowledge of the matter.

Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s chief strategist and communications director, bounced Twitter from the meeting as payback for the failed deal, according to the source familiar with the situation.

{mosads}Spicer denied involvement, saying in an email to The Hill that he “had absolutely nothing to do with this meeting.” And in a tweet, he called reports that the failed emoji deal led to Dorsey’s lack of invitation “another example of false, reprehensible, pathetic, tabloid faux journalism.”

Dorsey tabled the emoji deal, claiming that custom Twitter emojis the Trump campaign intended to use in tweets would cause legal problems, the Washington Examiner reported in October.

One of the disputed emojis included the hashtag #CROOKEDHILLARY followed by a bag of money. Twitter reportedly said the emojis did not provide enough transparency to make clear they were from the Trump campaign.

The Trump campaign had intended to use the emojis around the Oct. 9 presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

“While Twitter claims to be a venue that promotes the free exchange of ideas, it’s clear that it’s leadership’s left wing ideology literally trumps that,” Spicer said at the time.

Twitter defended the move.

“We have had specific discussions with several political organizations, including the Trump campaign, regarding branded emojis as part of broad advertising campaigns on Twitter,” said a Twitter spokesperson in October.

“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.”

Spicer dodged the question on why Dorsey was not invited to the meeting during a CNN interview on Wednesday.

“It’s not a question of who’s in,” Spicer said.

“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 added, noting that Dorsey could potentially join for “follow-up meetings.”

– Updated at 4:43 p.m.

Tags Donald Trump Hillary Clinton