Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch emailed editors at Reuters and Fortune today to let them know that he won’t be contributing columns to either publication going forward.
While Mr. Welch’s email, published at Fortune, merely notes that he and wife Suzy, with whom Mr. Welch pens his columns, get better “traction” at The Wall Street Journal, Fortune senior editor Stephen Gandel notes that Neutron Jack’s resignation follows reporting by the two organizations on a certain somebody’s jobs report tweet on Friday.In case you missed that one, Mr. Welch surmised that last month’s jobs report—which stated the lowest unemployment rate since January 2009—had been fixed to aid President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Yesterday, Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer went on MSNBC and criticized Mr. Welch’s sentiment. Reuters, meanwhile, referred to allegations that during Mr. Welch’s tenure at the helm of GE, the firm used well-timed transactions to ensure it hit Wall Street’s earning estimates.
For his part, Mr. Welch didn’t back down from his tweet. Per Reuters:
“These numbers just don’t go with the economic activity,” Mr. Welch said. “You draw your own conclusions.”
And:
He says he went through reviews of more than a dozen companies in different industries this week and none were stronger in the third quarter than they were in the second. “You can’t just call me old and senile,” he said.
And we won’t.
