Airbus Disavows PR Honcho’s Online Row With Extinction Rebellion

(Bloomberg) -- Airbus SE distanced itself from a Twitter spat between one of its top public-relations officials and Extinction Rebellion after the climate-action group posted screen-shots of the exchange this weekend.

The incident began when Alexander Reinhardt, Airbus’s head of public affairs for Germany, sent a tweet to the group saying “you better not get in my way” -- followed by five exclamation marks -- after days of disruption in protests by the group across Europe.

It became more heated when activists asked if he’d run them over in his company car or target them with one of the Eurofighter jets that Airbus helps make. Reinhardt responded by saying “whatever it takes” and “get back to work.”

Airbus then waded in with a tweet of its own, saying that it wished to clarify that the content expressed and language used by one of its employees “was inappropriate and does not represent the company’s opinion.”

Reinhardt subsequently deleted the posts and apologized for his tone, writing that the tweets had “nothing in common” with Airbus and were a private expression of his concern about the “deprivation of civic liberty by a non-governmental organization.”

The online altercation comes amid Extinction Rebellion protests in cities including Berlin and London, where hundreds of activists on Monday blocked roads around the Bank of England and glued themselves to BlackRock Inc.’s U.K. headquarters. The group has targeted everything from government buildings to bridges, airports, buses, trains and food markets as part of campaign to force climate change to the top of the political agenda.

Airbus declined to comment further beyond its tweeted message.

To contact the reporter on this story: Siddharth Philip in London at sphilip3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Christopher Jasper

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