 "Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has praised Donald Trump in the past. Image Courtesy Reuters")
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos faced major backlash after it was found that his aerospace company’s executives met former US President Donald Trump just hours before The Washington Post announced that it wouldn’t be endorsing any candidates in the upcoming US Presidential elections.
According to The New York Times, senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos. During the meeting, the billionaire expressed reservations about the newspaper issuing an endorsement in the November 5 polls.
On Friday, the American news outlet made the announcement, sparking major outrage from journalists and politicians. Shortly after the news stirred major headlines it was reported that the Post’s editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris. One of the major things which slipped many people’s minds was the fact that shortly before the announcement, high-ranking officials of Blue Origin met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas.
The closeness between Amazon and Trump sparks suspicious
It is pertinent to note that both Amazon and Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned businesses that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts. According to the Associated Press, Trump met with Blue Origin chief executive officer David Limp and vice-president of government relations Megan Mitchell after his rally in Texas. Not only this, it was reported that Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.
These reports were eviscerated by Washington Post’s editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on the same day the controversial announcement was made. The journalist argued that the meeting between the executives and Trump would not have taken place if the Post publically endorsed Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo," he added.
Meanwhile, the Post’s publisher Will Lewis, who was hired by Bezos in January, defended the paper’s owner by claiming the decision to not endorse a candidate this election was his. However, 18 opinion columnists at The Washington Post signed a dissenting column against the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake”.
It is pertinent to note that the paper endorsed former First Lady Hillary Clinton when Trump won the presidency in 2016. It endorsed Joe Biden when Trump lost in 2020, despite Trump’s pledges to retaliate against anyone who opposed him.
The decision received a major backlash from within, with the cartoon team at the paper publishing a dark formless image protesting against the non-endorsement decision, playing on the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan that the Post adopted in 2017, five years after Bezos purchased the company.
With inputs from agencies.