German official invites Twitter to relocate headquarters to Europe amid Trump feud

A German government official appeared to court Twitter to relocate its headquarters to Europe as the social media giant faces tensions with President Trump. 

“Hey @Twitter & @jack, this is an invitation to move to Germany! Here you are free to criticize the government as well as to fight fake news,”  tweeted Thomas Jarzombek, who oversees tech affairs for Germany’s Economic Affairs Ministry. 

“We have a great startup and tech ecosystem, your company would be a perfect fit and I will open any doors for you!” he added, tagging President Trump. 

Hey @Twitter & @jack, this is an invitation to move to Germany! Here you are free to criticize the government as well as to fight fake news. We have a great startup and tech ecosystem, your company would be a perfect fit and I will open any doors for you! @realDonaldTrump

— Thomas Jarzombek (@tj_tweets) May 28, 2020

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at increasing the ability of the government to regulate social media platforms. 

The move follows a multi-day feud between the president and Twitter after the social media giant applied a misinformation label to one of the president’s tweets for the first time Tuesday. 

The warning, urging users to “get the facts about mail-in ballots,” was attached to two posts in which Trump railed against mail-in voting in California, claiming without evidence that the practice is full of fraud. Since then, Twitter has placed similar labels on hundreds of other Tweets with false or misleading information. 

Trump accused the company of having a bias toward conservatives, which he has also said of Facebook in the past. 

Trump said Twitter was “stifling FREE SPEECH” and then threatened to “close” social media platforms in a series of posts on the platform.