President-elect Donald Trump declined to invite social network Twitter— a platform Trump himself uses with impunity—to a summit with other major technology players because of the company's refusal to approve a specialized emoji during the campaign, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source.
At the height of the campaign, Trump was attacking Democratic contender Hillary Clinton as "crooked", something he wanted the social network to create a "Crooked Hillary" emoji. The Trump campaign proposed a $5 million deal to do so, the publication stated, but Twitter rejected the idea. The character would have depicted money bags being stolen or given away, according to the report.
Twitter was pointedly left out of the confab at Trump Tower, which included high ranking executive delegations from Apple, Amazon.com and Oracle, just to name a few. A source told Politico that the company was "bounced" from the meeting in retribution over rejecting the emoji.
The unnamed source told Politico that RNC spokesman Sean Spicer, who is an adviser to the Trump transition, made the call to deny an invitation to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The summit was organized by Facebook board member and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who has been a vocal backer of Trump's.
Twitter declined to comment when reached by CNBC.