(Bloomberg) -- One of Lloyd Blankfein's inspirations for joining Twitter: Donald Trump.
"It's only with some great trepidation I'd say anything positive about the president in this crowd, or any crowd,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s chief executive officer said at an event in Boston. “But I would say that one of the things I admire is the way he disintermediated the press. I mean, really, you have to say it.”
In the past 24 hours, Trump has taken to Twitter to defend his congratulatory call to Russia's Vladimir Putin, to insult a compromise with Democrats as a waste of money, and to say that if he fought Joe Biden, the former vice president “would go down fast and hard, crying all the way.”
The irony of Blankfein's comment is that he has used several of his 37 tweets since joining last year to take digs at the president. His first, in June, criticized the decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
The CEO told of his fingers trembling while typing his first tweet, and when he later accidentally sent out an emoji of the flag of Liberia instead of the U.S.
Blankfein said he'd be better at Twitter if he weren't leading the bank: “The ones I don't send are really terrific.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Max Abelson in New York at mabelson@bloomberg.net, Dakin Campbell in New York at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
