Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein told CNBC on Monday he recently started tweeting as a more immediate way to comment on hot-button issues that impact banks.
"I commented on immigration, I commented on LGBT issues, I commented, obviously, on the environment more recently, spending on infrastructure," Blankfein told "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer on Monday. "It has to fall in, for my mind, in one of a couple of categories. Either it's something that's kind of in our wheelhouse of expertise. So I commented it would be very, very bad to let the U.S. government default – that's in our wheelhouse. Before Twitter, I did those things by press release. The other thing I'll comment on is when things really affect the ability of our people to be who they are and to do their job and to be effective as professionals."
In his first-ever tweet on June 1, Blankfein commented on President Donald Trump's decision to leave the Paris climate agreement:
Since then, Blankfein tweeted about a recent trip to China, saying the United States needs to invest in infrastructure to "keep up" with China's progress,
https://twitter.com/lloydblankfein/status/872070162744307713
congratulated General Electric's outgoing CEO Jeff Immelt on his record,
https://twitter.com/lloydblankfein/status/874285194823569409
and promoted bipartisan political collaboration.
https://twitter.com/lloydblankfein/status/875385242386911232
Watch the full segment here:
Blankfein acknowledged that as the head of a major institution like Goldman, it is relatively unusual for him to be tweeting his opinions.
But as more leaders, including the president of the country, take to Twitter to express their opinions and push policy, Blankfein said he found it to be an effective way to inform people of what Goldman does as an institution.
"In the [2008] financial crisis, nobody knew anything about what Goldman Sachs did," the CEO said. "And I said if this ever happens again, I'm not going to allow there to be a vacuum about what we're like. We're going to have to communicate to the world more of what we do, which we've done institutionally, but also, there's a personal element to it too."
Blankfein knows his audience, and as a voice of Goldman's mission, he said he takes some responsibility for espousing that to his following and giving his take on U.S. affairs.
"I kind of have to be the champion of our people and I kind of owe it to the body politic to comment where I have expertise," Blankfein said. "They could take my advice or not. I don't make decisions, but I do give them our expertise."
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