Chase Bank Deletes Tweet After Backlash
The Twitter account for banking giant Chase sent — and deleted — a tweet on Monday, one that critics said mocked people with low bank balances.
The tweet, preserved as a screen capture by various Twitter users, is structured as a conversation between an anonymous bank client and a living version of their bank account. The unnamed bank client asks his personified account, “why is my balance so low?” The imaginary sentient bank account replies, “make coffee at home,” “eat the food that’s already in the fridge,” and “you don’t need a cab, it’s only three blocks.” The hypothetical banking client says “I guess we’ll never know,” and his personified account replies, “seriously?”
As many pointed out, Chase’s parent company, J.P. Morgan Chase, received a $12 billion bailout, provided via taxpayer funds, following the financial crisis in 2008. Others pointed out that the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, made $29.5 million in 2017. Some critics would go on to detail that the company has had to pay fines in the past for various securities violations, including a $135 million fine to settle charges of improper handling of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) late last year, per the SEC.
Other users questioned why a company would insult its own customers, and potential customers.
The tweet was deleted after having been live for approximately 20 minutes, per Business Insider.
Not everyone hated the tweet, however.
“Chase was right, it was a good tweet,” political analyst Tom Nichols tweeted, adding that “the people who were offended probably saw themselves in it.”
After deleting the tweet, Chase posted another message not long afterward.
“Our #MondayMotivation is to get better at #MondayMotivation tweets,” the account tweeted. “Thanks for the feedback Twitter world.”
Jamie Dimon had flirted with a 2020 run for president over the course of the first two years of the Trump era, but ultimately opted against a run, per The Inquisitr.
Dimon said last month that while he spent nearly a year thinking about a run for the White House, he ultimately decided that he couldn’t earn the assent of either major political party and that he wasn’t interested in running as an independent, either.
The 63-year-old Dimon, who has been head of the bank since 2005, announced that he would continue to try to serve the public from his current position, rather than run for political office. President Trump, in tweets last year, had mocked Dimon’s desire to run for president, bashing him as a poor public speaker who lacked the “smarts” to run for president. However, Trump and Dimon appeared to be getting along better as of last October, per Bloomberg News.
