President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the cost of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters was “out of control.”
Hours after his tweet, Lockheed’s stock fell 2.5%, lowering the company’s valuation by almost $4 billion. Lockheed competitor Boeing saw its stock rise 0.7%.
However, with no new news on the program offered, and with the planes entering service, the president-elect created his own news. Using Twitter, he published it himself and moved the market, all without having to communicate through traditional media that, per the old rules, would have included a response from Lockheed, perhaps defending the cost of its plane.
By the time Lockheed responded with a defensive press release—a tool from an age now gone by—the trend had been established, the trades made, and the damage to Lockheed’s stock done.
Anyone has been able to become a publisher of news (real or fake) using tools accessible to all, over the last decade…