Donald Trump Twitter: Microblog Executives Disinvited To Tech Summit; President-Elect Wants Attendees To Like Him 'At Least A Little Bit'

President-elect Donald Trump may love the reach Twitter provides him for communicating directly with his followers but he’s apparently not a fan of the social media platform’s management. Trump barred Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey from his meeting Wednesday with tech executives, Politico reported.

It came one day after Twitter said it would not help build a Muslim registry that has been proposed as a means of preventing terrorism, and a group of engineers, designers and business executives signed an open letter saying they would not help create a Muslim registry or participate in mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Trump, who uses Twitter as a press channel for his 17.3 million followers, apparently still is smarting from Twitter’s refusal to allow an emoji version of the hashtag #CrookedHillary.

Trump had beefs with other tech executives but they still attended the meeting at Trump Tower in New York, including Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, and Apple’s Tim Cook. Trump was critical of Apple for refusing to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California, terrorists, and he has accused Bezos of directing negative news coverage of his campaign.

Gary Coby, director of digital advertising and fundraising for the Trump campaign, said in a Medium post last month Twitter rejected the emoji request even though the campaign had $5 million upfront deal. The campaign had approved two emojis before the first presidential debate, one was a hand holding a green moneybag that evolved into a stick figure running off with a moneybag.

“Day after day, TW wouldn’t give us an official yay/nay and my contacts inside TW told me the new design was causing a lot of heartburn and ‘big meetings’ with folks at the top,” Coby wrote. Approval for the first emoji also was withdrawn.

Ahead of the second debate, the campaign wanted to use a moneybag with emoji wings to signify government waste, Coby said. Twitter approved that emoji but then Dorsey killed it.

Politico said RNC spokesman Sean Spicer disinvited Twitter executives to Wednesday’s summit, which was organized by Trump adviser and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

The meeting was billed as a fence-mending session since most tech leaders were Hillary Clinton supporters and differ with Trump on such issues as immigration, internet security and regulation on government investment. More than 140 executives signed an open letter during the summer predicting a Trump presidency would be a disaster for innovation.

In addition to Bezos and Cook, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Alphabet’s Larry Page, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Palantir Technologies’ Alex Karp, IBM’s Ginni Rometty and Tesla’s Elon Musk were among those in attendance, as well as Trump’s three oldest children, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka, and Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky did not attend, citing conflicting travel plans.

“I’m here to help you folks do well,” Trump told the gathering before the press was ushered out, adding: “And you’re doing well right now and I’m very honored by the [stock market] bounce. They’re all talking about the bounce. So right now everybody in this room has to like me — at least a little bit — but we’re going to try and have that bounce continue.”

Before the meeting, Trump announced Musk and Kalanick would join his Strategic and Policy Forum, which also includes Rometty.