Jeff Bezos is ‘optimistic’ about the president-elect Donald Trump‘ into his second term and said Wednesday that he will “help” him achieve their shared goals.
The Amazon founder was often seen as hostile to Trump during his first visit to the White House.
However, Bezos expressed some excitement about possible regulatory cuts in the coming years.
“I’m actually very optimistic this time,” Bezos said on stage during a wide-ranging interview at a conference in New York.
‘He seems to have a lot of energy in reducing regulations. If I can help with that, I’m going to help him.’
“We have too many rules in this country,” Bezos added.
The comments follow Bezos’ decision in October to ban The Washington Post, which he owns, from endorsing a presidential candidate.
Bezos said political endorsements “create a perception of bias” and argued that ending the long-running practice of supporting a candidate for the White House was a “decision of principle, and it is the right one.”
Jeff Bezos said Wednesday he is “optimistic” about newly elected President Donald Trump’s second term, saying he will “help” him achieve their shared goals
The Amazon founder was often seen as hostile to Trump during his first visit to the White House. However, Bezos expressed some excitement about possible regulatory cuts in the coming years
‘Presidential expressions of support do not change the outcome of an election. No undecided voter in Pennsylvania will say, “I agree with the endorsement of Newspaper A.” None,” he wrote.
On Wednesday he reaffirmed his position, saying: “It was the right decision, I am proud of the decision we made.”
“We knew this would be perceived in a very big way, these things punch above their weight,” he added.
“You can’t do the wrong thing because you’re afraid of bad PR, or whatever you want to call it.
The move led to tens of thousands of people canceling their subscriptions and protests from journalists with a deep history with the newspaper.
Bezos is now focusing on rebuilding the newspaper after the cancellations.
‘I have a lot of ideas and I’m working on them now. We saved The Washington Post once, this will be the second time. It must be put back on a good basis.’
On Wednesday, he said he would try to talk Trump out of that idea. the press is the enemy.
The comments follow Bezos’ decision in October to ban The Washington Post, which he owns, from endorsing a presidential candidate
He reaffirmed his position on Wednesday, saying: “It was the right decision, I am proud of the decision we made.”
“You’ve probably grown in the last eight years,” he told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. ‘He has that too. This is not the case. The press is not the enemy.’
In another part of the interview, Bezos said he does not expect Elon Musk, who has been tasked with easing regulations in the coming Trump era, to use his power to hurt his business competitors. Bezos owns Blue Origin, a competitor of Musk’s SpaceX.
Bezos has previously been a thorn in Trump’s side.
When Trump first ran for president, he began threatening that Amazon and Jeff Bezos would pay a price for any anti-Trump bias.
“If I become president, oh, will they have problems? They will have such problems,” he warned.
Trump was especially saddened by Bezos’ ownership of the iconic Washington Post.
He was said to be furious about what he called the “Amazon Washington Post,” falsely claiming it had avoided “internet taxes.”
During his time in office, Trump became “obsessed” with retaliation against Bezos over the Post’s negative coverage of him.
When Trump first ran for president, he started threatening how Amazon and Jeff Bezos would pay the price
“We get calls every hour from Washington Post reporters asking ridiculous questions,” he ranted in one go. “And I’ll tell you, this is a toy owned by Jeff Bezos, who controls Amazon. Amazon gets away with murder fiscally. He uses the Washington Post for power.”
During the Trump administration, Amazon sued the government after claiming it blocked a $10 billion cloud computing services contract with the Pentagon because of the then-president’s anger over the Post’s reporting.
The Biden administration later pursued a contract with both Amazon and Microsoft.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, Bezos has staunchly supported staff reporting and has not interfered with reporting on his own business interests or personal life.