Trump Had Closed-Door Meeting With Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, White House Confirms

Jenna Amatulli
Updated

The White House has confirmed to HuffPost that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey along with other Twitter executives had a closed-door meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

In a statement, Twitter told HuffPost that “Jack had a constructive meeting with the President of the United States today at the president’s invitation.”

“They discussed Twitter’s commitment to protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis,” the statement read.

Upon obtaining an internal Twitter email, Motherboard reported on Tuesday that Dorsey would be attending the meeting after an invitation from the White House. Motherboard also received a second email from two sources that included thoughts from Dorsey himself.

“As you know, I believe that conversation, not silence, bridges gaps and drives towards solutions,” read the email from Dorsey. “I have met with every world leader who has extended an invitation to me, and I believe the discussions have been productive, and the outcomes meaningful.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told HuffPost via email that she could confirm the meeting already happened.

Trump himself tweeted about the meeting on Tuesday afternoon, saying he hopes to keep an “open dialogue” with Dorsey and Twitter.

According to The Washington Post, the president used “a significant portion” of the meeting to complain about his follower count.

Trump expressed concerns that Twitter was secretly removing some of his followers and those of fellow conservatives, an unnamed source with knowledge of the meeting told the Post. Dorsey reportedly reiterated to the president that users’ followers may fluctuate as the company continues its efforts to remove spam accounts.

Twitter has had a contentious relationship with the public when it comes to the president’s presence on the platform. Despite Trump’s repeated instances of inciting violence among his base and against the media, Dorsey previously told HuffPost that he wasn’t sure what it would take for him to ban Trump from the platform.

In an exclusive interview with HuffPost’s Ashley Feinberg, Dorsey said “we’d certainly talk about it” if the president directed his Twitter followers to murder someone.

When Feinberg pushed Dorsey on that response, he said in the January 2019 interview: “I’m not going to talk about particulars. We’ve established protocol, it’s transparent. It’s out there for everyone to read. We have, independent of the U.S. president, we have conversations with all governments. It’s not just limited to this one.”

This has been updated throughout.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.