Key Takeaways
Despite having a turbulent relationship with Donald Trump, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos remains optimistic about the incoming presidency, and Amazon has even donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
In an apparent bid to build bridges, Bezos is also slated to visit Trump next week at Mar-a-Lago, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, Dec. 12.
While Amazon has a track record of making donations to help fund presidential inauguration costs, the latest commitment is significantly more than the $58,000 in cash and in-kind donations it gave to Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
Alongside the cash donation, Amazon will make a $1 million in-kind donation by streaming the event on Amazon Video, the Journal reported.
Moreover, Meta has also donated to the inaugural fund. Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg has likewise sought a more positive relationship with Trump.
During a conversation at the Dealbook Summit on Dec. 4, Bezos praised Trump’s “deregulatory agenda” and his move to recruit Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In the interview , journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Bezos whether he was worried that Trump could exact retribution on Amazon and other businesses Bezos owns for the Washington Post’s negative coverage.
Bezos denied the charge and any suggestion that the Post’s controversial decision not to endorse a presidential candidate was intended to appease Trump.
“That was certainly not in my mind,” he stressed.
Instead, Bezos said he was “very optimistic this time around,” especially about the President-elect’s deregulatory agenda.
Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation,” Bezos noted, arguing that doing so would help boost growth and solve some of the U.S.’ economic problems. “If I can help him do that, I’m going to help him,” he added.
Later in the interview, Bezos cited Musk and Ramaswamy’s DOGE and struck a similarly optimistic tone with regard to Musk’s expected role in government.
Asked whether he was concerned that Musk’s proximity to Trump could hurt the business prospects of Blue Origin, a SpaceX rival, Bezos said he thought Musk would approach any government job with integrity.
“He is not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors,” Bezos predicted, suggesting that to believe otherwise would be cynical.
While Bezos may publicly disavow cynicism, there are plenty of people who view his apparent earnestness with skepticism.
The Washington Post’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in fifty years was viewed by many readers, Democrats, and the some of Post’s own journalists as a transparent attempt to curry favor with Trump.
Bezos’s resolute determination not to criticize the President-Elect during his latest interview also looks a lot like appeasement. And who can blame him?
During the previous Trump administration, there was speculation that the president used his influence to derail a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract awarded to Amazon Web Services.
When Amazon later sued over the matter, lawyers argued that Trump’s disdain for Bezos swayed the bidding process.
Since then, Amazon has won even more government contracts and a repeat of the same situation would seriously hurt its revenues.
With so much at stake, Bezos’ conciliatory tone could be the key to protecting his companies’ business interests.