Mexico’s Next Finance Chief Says Twitter Account Isn’t His

(Bloomberg) -- After Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told the world in a video Tuesday that Arturo Herrera was his choice for his next finance minister, a Twitter account with the nominee’s smiling face took off and went from zero to more than 14,000 followers within eight hours.

Problem is, it wasn’t his account.

Herrera said at a news conference Tuesday evening that he doesn’t have an account and didn’t know who would have opened one in his name. That didn’t stop it from attracting followers from the government including Jesus Ramirez, the spokesman for Lopez Obrador; Mario Delgado, his party’s leader in the lower house of congress; and even the account of his own ministry, making it appear more legitimate.

The account, which appeared suspended for periods on Tuesday night, never showed the blue verified check mark typical of authentic users, and its followers paled in comparison to the 110,000 for his predecessor, Carlos Urzua. It also only had three posts; the video where AMLO, as the president is known, nominated Herrera, who has been working as undersecretary; a second post in which Herrera thanked AMLO for his confidence; and the news conference Herrera held Tuesday.

Read more about Herrera’s nomination and Urzua’s resignation

The danger is that in an age when Twitter posts from government officials routinely move markets, thousands of people could believe that Herrera controlled the account, potentially leading to hoaxes. Urzua made the announcement of his own resignation via a letter posted Tuesday morning on Twitter, sending the peso down as much as 2.3%. That was the biggest intraday drop since a tariff threat at the end of May by U.S. President Donald Trump -- which was also made via Twitter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Martin in Mexico City at emartin21@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Robert Jameson

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