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Administration

19 companies that Trump has tweeted about

by Ben Kamisar - 01/16/17 8:30 AM ET
by Ben Kamisar - 01/16/17 8:30 AM ET
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President-elect Donald Trump’s tweet in support of L.L. Bean is far from the first time he’s used his virtual soapbox to promote a specific company.

Trump has regularly singled out businesses for commendation and condemnation on Twitter, even before he became a candidate for president. Now that he’s the president-elect, his tweets have the power to move markets.

{mosads}Whether Trump will continue to single out companies in the White House remains to be seen, as ethics rules are supposed to bar federal officials from making direct endorsements.

Here are the companies that Trump has singled out on Twitter since he began his presidential bid last year, not including his spats with media organizations.

L.L. Bean

Trump weighed in this week after a rash of stories about his critics boycotting L.L. Bean, which makes outdoor apparel and gear, as well as the popular “Bean boot.”

One of the members of the Bean family, Linda Bean, gave $60,000 to the Making American Great Again LLC, a PAC that supported Trump’s presidential bid.

That donation has put Bean in hot water, as under federal law, the maximum donation that a PAC can take is $5,000, according to The Associated Press. Bean argues she only donated $25,000 and thought she was donating to a super PAC, which can take unlimited amounts of money.

Making American Great Again LLC is reportedly seeking to change its registration to become a super PAC.

Bean appeared on “Fox and Friends” to talk about her support of Trump despite the boycott about an hour before Trump’s tweet.

Carrier/United Technologies

Trump’s deal with Carrier has become one of the biggest moments of his transition, and he spent the end of November singing the company’s praises on Twitter.

His supporters lauded the administration for directly negotiating to keep jobs at a Carrier furnace plant, owned by the parent company United Technologies, in Indiana. Critics charge that Trump is exaggerating the number of jobs his deal saved, noting that hundreds of others are still slated for outsourcing.

Rexnord

Days after he announced the Carrier deal in early December, Trump challenged the industrial company Rexnord for its decision to ship jobs overseas.

Rexnord workers are represented Steelworkers Local 1999 Union, the same union that represents the workers at Carrier’s Indiana plant. So when the 1999 head criticized Trump for inflating the number of jobs saved in the Carrier deal, Trump took time to needle another company under the union’s umbrella.

Boeing/Lockheed

Trump has taken on the aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin several times since Election Day.

He did so again during his Wednesday news conference when he said that Lockheed is behind schedule and over budget on the F-35 program. That remark prompted its stock shares to plunge.

Ford/Fiat Chrysler

In a rare incident of Twitter praise, Trump applauded both automakers this month for deciding to make further investments in American plants instead of outsourcing.

Ford’s CEO told CNN that the move is a “vote of confidence” in Trump’s new direction. But Fiat Chrysler told ThinkProgress in a statement the move had been announced a year ago and had nothing to do with Trump.

General Motors

Trump set his sights on yet another car company this month, this time to warn against shipping Mexican-made cars into America.

A General Motors spokesperson told PolitiFact it sells about 15 percent of Mexican-made hatchbacks in America, with the rest manufactured in the U.S. And statements from the company since the tweet show that it doesn’t expect to change its business plans based on Trump’s tweets and threats for import tariffs.

Toyota

Trump slapped at Toyota in January for building a new plant in Mexico.

The plans had been announced in 2015, before Trump even declared his presidential bid, and had coincided with additional investments in four American car plants.

Apple

During the presidential campaign Trump blasted Apple for refusing to help the FBI crack into iPhone of a suspect in the December 2015 terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif.

The issue went to rest months later when the FBI disclosed that it had found a way into the phone with help from an outside source.

Amazon

Trump has locked horns with fellow business billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who bought The Washington Post in 2013.

The feud likely has to do with Trump’s complaint that the Post doesn’t cover him fairly. But Trump has suggested that Bezos is using the Post as pressure to keep his tax burden down and avoid an anti-trust violation at Amazon.

Macy’s

The clothing giant had a falling out with Trump over his campaign, cutting its ties to Trump’s clothing brand in July, weeks after he jumped into the presidential race making controversial comments about Mexican immigrants.

Trump responded with near-monthly tweets blasting the company and calling for a boycott through the rest of 2015.

Amer-I-Can

Trump boosted the Amer-I-Can nonprofit founded by former football star Jim Brown in a December tweet two weeks after Brown traveled to New York with a group to meet with the future president. 

After the meeting, Brown and his allies told reporters that Trump committed to merge the Amer-I-Can program with the Trump administration’s efforts to keep kids from gang violence.

Koch Industries

Many of Trump’s critiques of businesses are based in political differences. That was the case when Trump sent this February 2015 tweet blasting the company owned by the GOP mega donors Charles and David Koch.

The impetus for the tweet was the decision by Marc Short, a top political operative from the Koch-connected Freedom Partners, to go to work for Marco Rubio in the GOP primary.

Short joined the Trump campaign after the primary and was just named the assistant to the president and director of legislative affairs.

T-Mobile

Trump has regularly targeted T-Mobile on Twitter during his career, but only once while he was running for office.

When T-Mobile CEO John Legere criticized Trump for a November 2015 tweet chiding a UFC fighter for her surprise loss, Trump shot back to blast T-Mobile and later retweeted a follower complaining about the cell-phone company’s “pathetic” service.”

Twitter, Google and Facebook

The social media giants drew Trump’s ire in late October of 2016 hours after a story posted on Breitbart News, the outlet once led by future White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, alleging that news about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email was not prominently featured.

The fact-checking website PolitiFact repudiated that claim in a post that showed the topic’s presence on the various websites.

Tags Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Marco Rubio

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