Dive Brief:
- T-Mobile's CEO John Legere went on a Twitter rant against Sprint after a merger between the two mobile carriers fell through.
- Legere's creative hashtags told Twitter users to #sprintlikehell and stay out of a #framilyfeud.
- In addition to dropping the merger bid, Sprint has replaced its CEO since 2007, Dan Hesse, with Marcelo Claure — a member of Sprint's board with no experience running a wireless carrier.
If you needed just one more reason to leave Sprint and join T Mobile….Now you might just have it….total Chaos at Sprint! #sprintlikehell
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) August 6, 2014
Looks like @sprint has a new #framily member… and he’s got a lot of framily therapy to do, asap. #justsayin
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) August 6, 2014
If you’re a @sprint customer, you’re in the middle of a #framilyfued and it’s time to up and go! To @TMobile… #hadto
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) August 6, 2014
Dive Insight:
Despite Legere's colorfully worded tweets, neither Sprint nor T-Mobile has come out with an official statement as to why the merger fell through. Legere is certainly offering a lot of material to speculate on the situation by bad-mouthing Sprint on Twitter. At face value, it seems quite cheap and immature for a CEO of a high-profile company like T-Mobile to behave in such an immature manner. That being said, it is drawing attention to the issue — a goal Legere likely had with the tweets.