JPMorgan Chase helped take Twitter public last week. But on Wednesday evening, the banking giant got a taste of the social network’s power — in a very negative way.
The firm called off a question-and-answer session with James B. Lee Jr., its vice chairman and top deal maker, after Twitter users complied with its request for queries with a stream of ribald questions and hostile jokes.
A spokesman for the firm wrote in an email, “#Badidea! Back to the drawing board!”
Through its roughly year-old Twitter account, @JPMorgan began teasing a Q. and A. with a senior executive last week:
On Monday, the firm revealed that the respondent would be Mr. Lee, who was part of the team that worked on Twitter’s successful initial public offering.
The original idea — which had been kicked around the firm over the last few weeks, according to a person briefed on the matter — was to come up with an out-of-the-box way to use social media. The target audience was students, with Mr. Lee expected to focus on career advice.
Twitter’s prolific users had other things in mind. Over much of Wednesday afternoon, Twitter users asked an array of decidedly non-career-related questions of the bank, many unsuitable for a family audience.
Some subtly poked fun of the firm and its troubles, including the multibillion-dollar trading loss racked up by a trader nicknamed the London Whale:
Others attacked the firm’s ties to Washington and the White House:
Some took a more populist tack:
Others who have asked for user-submitted questions have often found themselves the butt of jokes, something JPMorgan is learning the hard way. Still, no one will lose their jobs over the fracas, the person briefed on the matter said.
All the same, while JPMorgan may have called off the Q. and A., users haven’t abandoned the #askjpm hashtag, with “questions” still flooding Twitter.