Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin deleted a Twitter posting that blasted General Motors Co.’s plan to close U.S. factories after saying someone had gained unauthorized access to his account.
Mnuchin didn’t say who made the posting — a retweet of an account called @The_Trump_Train, which has no identified owner or operator — and didn’t claim that his account had been hacked. President Donald Trump retweeted the same posting and hasn’t deleted it.
A Treasury spokesman said the department is investigating the situation and will reset the credentials to Mnuchin’s Twitter account. The spokesman didn’t respond to a separate request to identify who is authorized to use Mnuchin’s account.
The tweet from @The_Trump_Train said that GM “should pay back the $11.2 billion bailout that was funded by the American taxpayer.”
The U.S. spent about $50 billion to bail out GM in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The government’s stake was converted to equity after the company declared bankruptcy in 2009. Treasury sold its final remaining shares in 2013, and later said the bailout overall cost the government about $11 billion.
Mnuchin has until now kept to the traditional practice of Treasury secretaries refraining from publicly commenting on specific U.S. companies. Other members of the administration, including the president, have done so repeatedly.
The @The_Trump_Train, which has about 298,000 followers, isn’t verified by Twitter. On its Twitter page, it’s described as a “Fan account” that has been retweeted by @realDonaldTrump, the twitter handle for the president.
