Though even the highest of executives using social media to voice out their stand on controversial issues like climate change, immigration, and gun control had been going on for a long time, it is totally a different matter, in times of global trade issues, when executives take a swipe at the world's second-largest market and literally shoot themselves in the foot when they comment on something out of their turf.

Daryl Morey, Houston Rockets general manager, in his now-deleted tweet, cost the National Basketball Association (NBA) somewhere between $10 million and $25 million with some American jobs in China reportedly being at stake as well.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a leadership expert at the Yale School of Management said that this conflict of interest, when a company's commercial and financial interests are different from a CEO's personal values, coupled with the values of a company and its home country, is one of the rarely talked about effects of globalization.

The NBA isn't the only one that had crossed the line.

Apple and Google both have to remove apps recently showcasing what's happening in Hong Kong.

Doug Smith, managing principal of the Pittsburgh office of law firm Jackson Lewis stated that "Free speech only exists if you're in a government position."

He clarified though that exceptions exist in instances wherein workers can raise concerns about safety and working conditions.

However, bosses aren't covered by that privilege.

Companies can "be a little more stringent" when it comes to managers and those who are even in a higher position because they are the face of the company Smith added.

Smith finds it impossible that someone in position is saying something but believing it has nothing to do with the company they are employed at.

In the US, some companies for the past two years have made sure executives' contracts have a special clause on their use of social media.

These clauses make it easy for companies to fire executives for posting or saying something inappropriate that can hurt the company's operations and reputation.

Some companies even have their executives' posts run through a gatekeeper.

In his consulting work, Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communication at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, tells executives to stand down on topics that are not part of the core business of the company they're employed at adding that it is not a CEO's job to save the world.

Likewise, Rick Wartzman, a director at the Drucker Institute, an organization focused on leadership and management, sees executives posting their views on current affairs on social media distracting from the more substantive questions of social responsibility.

He added that it is bothersome that though statements coming from people in position is important, what happens is it becomes "a substitute for the more meaningful work" of being a responsible company and taking care of stakeholders, exactly what executives are being paid to do.