This week's #winners and #losers

The Mountain Comes to Mohammed/Trump Meets With Silicon Valley

Winner: Twitter—didn’t get an invite to the big meetings because “they aren’t big enough,” but it’s still Trump’s preferred social media outlet. And if Twitter banned his account, he’d have to start giving press conferences. That’s leverage. Twitter was also the first tech company to categorically refuse to help with a Muslim registry. #Winning 

Loser: IBM—ahead of the Trump meeting, IBM’s CEO pens an op-ed pledging to hire 25,000 new workers in the US over the next four years. Which is fine, except an IBM spokesperson elaborated: “[we’re] announcing them now as a basis for engaging the incoming administration on how the right policies can create more New Collar opportunities for U.S. workers." Companies used to hire to add value, not to “message” the president. #AppeasingPEOTUS

The Week in Déjà vu

Winner: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—straight out of 1791, Mozart became 2016’s top artist by CD sales. True, the CDs are part of a 200-CD boxset celebrating the 225th anniversary of his death, but it’s an impressive achievement nonetheless, especially when the boxset costs $500. #RockMeAmadeus

Loser: Palmyra—while the world’s attention has been focused on the “meltdown of humanity” that is Aleppo, ISIS recaptured the city of Palmyra this week. And here we were worried that that the violence in Syria was drawing to a close.

The Week in “What Were They Thinking?”

Winner: Kanye West—gets an invite to meet with Trump at Trump Tower, actually shows up. The meeting must have gone well since Kanye then tweeted out “#2024”, a play on the “#Kanye2020” hashtag that has been making the rounds. And we’re all left hoping the guy who just had a mental breakdown talked some sense into the president-elect. #WestGoesSouth 

Loser: Chilean Economy Minister Luis Felipe Cespedes—at an industry dinner with the Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Cespedes was handed a sex doll as a joke gift, which he laughingly accepted. He later claimed to have been “caught by surprise” and deeply remorseful. Chilean twitter blew-up over the tone-deaf gift. That probably caught him by surprise, too. #ReGiftCarefully 

The Week in Wrapping Up 70-Year-Old Problems With Fascism

Winner: Spain—Spain’s Employment Minister announced this week that Madrid is planning to get workers out of the office earlier, a plan that includes switching the country from Central European Time (CET) to the more geographically appropriate Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Spain’s fascist ruler changed the country’s clocks in 1940 to line up with Nazi Germany, and nobody bothered to change it back. #BadTiming 

Loser: Russia & Japan—Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met in Japan this week to discuss four disputed islands. Resolution would pave the way for a peace treaty between the two countries formally ending World War II. As of this writing, no deal has been reached. #WarWithoutEnd

The Week in Surprising Admissions (That Aren’t Actually Surprising)

Winner: Cuba—The island nation doesn’t have a lot of money, but it does have a lot of debt. This week it asked the Czech Republic if it could repay its Cold War-era debt—approximately $276 million—in rum. “Sweet,” replied the Czechs, “but we’d like at least part of that payment in cash.” #DontBounceTheCzechs

Loser: Justice in the Philippines—the ever-charming Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte admitted this week that he personally killed suspected criminals and drug dealers while mayor of the city of Davao. While two senators called for his impeachment, the country’s justice minister chalked it up to hyperbole: “He always exaggerates just to put his message across.” #SlipperySlopeOffACliff

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, foreign affairs columnist at TIME and Global Research Professor at New York University. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.