Jeff Bezos said he was ‘optimistic’ about President-elect Donald Trump’s second term on Wednesday and even plans to ‘help him’ achieve their shared goals.
The Amazon founder was often seen as antagonistic toward Trump during his first go around in the White House.
However, Bezos expressed some excitement about potential regulatory cutbacks in the coming years.
‘I’m actually very optimistic this time around,’ Bezos said on stage during a wide-ranging interview at a conference in New York.
‘He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I´m going to help him.’
‘We do have too many regulations in this country,’ Bezos added.
Bezos also promised to ‘save’ The Washington Post, which he owns, following fierce backlash and a precipitous drop in readership after his bombshell October decision to prohibit the paper from endorsing a presidential candidate.
Jeff Bezos said Wednesday he is ‘optimistic’ about President-elect Donald Trump’s second term and says he’ll ‘help him’ achieve their shared goals
The Amazon founder was often seen as antagonistic toward Trump during his first go around in the White House. However, Bezos expressed some excitement about potential regulatory cutbacks in the coming years
Bezos said at the time that political endorsements ‘create a perception of bias’ and argued ending the long-running practice of endorsing a candidate for the White House was a ‘principled decision, and it’s the right one.’
‘Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None,’ he wrote.
He reaffirmed his stance on Wednesday, saying: ‘It was the right decision, I am proud of the decision we made.’
‘We knew that this was going to be perceived in a very big way, these things punch above their weight,’ he added.
‘You can’t do the wrong thing because you are worried about 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 at the newspaper.
Bezos is focused now on building the paper back up following the cancelations.
‘I have a bunch of ideas, and I am working on that right now. We saved The Washington Post once, this will be the second time. It needs to be put back on a good footing again.’
On Wednesday, he said he would try to talk Trump ‘out of the idea’ that the press is the enemy.
The comments follow Bezos’ October decision to prohibit The Washington Post, which he owns, from endorsing a presidential candidate
He reaffirmed his stance 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 said to journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. ‘He has, too. This is not the case. The press is not the enemy.’
In another part of the interview, Bezos said he doesn’t expect Elon Musk, who has been tasked with cutting regulations in the upcoming Trump term, to use his power to hurt his business competitors. Bezos owns Blue Origin, a rival to Musk’s SpaceX.
Bezos has been more of a thorn in Trump’s side.
Indeed, when Trump first ran for president, he began to threaten that Amazon and Jeff Bezos would pay a price for any anti-Trump bias.
‘If I become president — oh, do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems,’ he warned.
Trump was particularly aggrieved at Bezos’s ownership of the iconic Washington Post.
He would rage at what he called the ‘Amazon Washington Post,’ claiming spuriously that it had avoided ‘internet taxes.’
During his time in office Trump became ‘obsessed’ with retribution against Bezos for the Post’s negative coverage of him.
Indeed, when Trump first ran for president , he began to threaten how Amazon and Jeff Bezos would pay the price
‘Every hour, we’re getting calls from reporters from the Washington Post asking ridiculous questions,’ he ranted in once instance. ‘And I will tell you: This is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos, who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with murder, taxwise. He’s using the Washington Post for power.’
During the Trump administration, Amazon sued the government after alleging it had blocked a $10 billion cloud-computing-services contract with the Pentagon over the then-president’s ire about coverage in the Post.
The Biden administration later pursued a contract with both Amazon and Microsoft.
Throughout the Trump presidency, Bezos resolutely supported the staff’s coverage and he has not interfered with reporting on his own business interests or personal life.
