T-Mobile CEO John Legere has joked that he wouldn’t want to get into a fight with Marcelo Claure, the 6-foot-6-inch Sprint CEO. But trading jabs on Twitter is obviously another matter.
The rival wireless execs, the leaders of the No. 3 and 4 U.S. carriers, got into a public spat on Twitter tonight — not over the outcome of the FCC’s wireless spectrum auction, or their respective LTE coverage maps, but over Super Bowl ads, of course.
Legere, whose company aired a Super Bowl ad featuring Kim Kardashian, and another with Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman, got things started with what is, for him, a fairly typical response to a Sprint ad.
Here are the T-Mobile and Sprint ads, and Legere’s tweet.
Half-assed commercial, half-assed data speeds. #typical @sprint. #SprintLikeHell
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) February 2, 2015
To which Claure replied …
@JohnLegere @sprint pic.twitter.com/UH8J6ZvMAD
— MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) February 2, 2015
After some more back-and-forth, the T-Mobile CEO questioned whether Claure was actually even the one behind his Twitter account.
.@RogerWCheng @marceloclaure Do any of you really think @marceloclaure claure touches his twitter ? Do the 99% retweets really fool you?
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) February 2, 2015
Claure (or the person handling his Twitter) retweeted this comment about Legere.
Seems as though @marceloclaure is fierce but professional while @JohnLegere is fierce and kind of an asshole.
— ShutTheFrontDoor (@YeahSureYouBet) February 2, 2015
Clearly there is no love lost between these companies, which were discussing a merger at one point last year. Legere has vowed that T-Mobile will surpass Sprint in total subscribers soon. Grab your popcorn.