Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founding father of Amazon and proprietor of The Washington Submit, congratulated President-elect Trump on his resounding victory on election night time this week.
“Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Bezos wrote on social platform X. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing [Trump] all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
Bezos’s shoutout to Trump is notable given his possession of the Submit and a current controversy he stirred with a choice final month to kill an endorsement of both candidate within the 2024 White Home race.
The media and tech mogul barred the Submit from publishing an endorsement after the newspaper’s editorial board had drafted an editorial backing Vice President Harris.
The choice despatched shockwaves by way of the Submit’s newsroom and led media and political observers to specific concern that Bezos, one of many richest individuals on earth, was trying to curry favor with Trump.
Bezos pushed again on these accusations in an op-ed, revealed within the Submit shortly after information broke the newspaper wouldn’t endorse a candidate.
“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one,” he wrote.
“I might additionally wish to be clear that no quid professional quo of any form is at work right here,” the billionaire continued. “Neither marketing campaign nor candidate was consulted or knowledgeable at any degree or in any approach about this choice. It was made totally internally.”
Trump, for his half, at a marketing campaign rally within the closing days of the run as much as Election Day gloated about Bezos’s edict and comparable selections by different main media retailers to not endorse a candidate.
“They’re saying, ‘This Democrat’s no good. They’re no good,’ and they think I’m doing a great job,” Trump said at the time. “They just don’t want to say it.”
