The president-elect jumped into corporate affairs again Tuesday, tweeting first to criticize one company and then to hail another. He began at 8:52 a.m. New York time by calling out Boeing Co. over costs to develop new Air Force One jets. Just over five hours later he celebrated a $50 billion investment in the U.S. by Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank Group Corp.
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The tweets, coming after Trump last week announced a deal with United Technologies Corp. to cancel plans to close a U.S. factory, dominated news and moved markets even as details in both cases remained sketchy and the impacts unclear. Trump again showed a willingness to use his bully pulpit to criticize or congratulate companies over actions affecting American workers and government spending.
“This is extraordinary,” said Mohan Tatikonda, a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “For a president to get involved at the level of spot locations, spot companies, spot plants, is I think unprecedented.”
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The market reacted again early Wednesday after Trump said he will bring down drug prices, sparking a drop in biotechnology stocks. That comment came from a Time Magazine interview, however, not Twitter.
A president who’s too eager to pick winners and losers may prompt business owners to seek special treatment in Washington instead of focusing on improving operations, said Anne Krueger, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.