New York
CNN
—
Jeff Bezos hopes Donald Trump has modified.
Speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, the billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post proprietor stated he hopes {that a} second Trump administration will look extra favorably on the press, saying he’ll “attempt to discuss [Trump] out of” the concept journalists are an enemy.
“I don’t assume the press is the enemy,” Bezos advised Andrew Ross Sorkin. “The press shouldn’t be the enemy, let’s go persuade him of this.”
While Trump famously focused Bezos and his corporations throughout his first time period, Bezos stated he was “very optimistic” a couple of second Trump administration and steered he even needs to assist the incoming president.
“I’m very optimistic this time round, I’m very hopeful, he appears to have plenty of power round decreasing regulation, and if I can assist him try this, I’m going to assist him,” he stated of Trump.
During Trump’s first administration, he railed towards Bezos and Amazon, known as the Post “The Fake News Washington Post” and derided the paper as Amazon’s “chief lobbyist.” Trump accused the e-commerce large of failing to pay its share of taxes and his administration blocked Amazon’s $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, which was broadly seen on the time as Trump searching for retribution towards Bezos over the Post’s reporting.
“You’ve most likely grown within the final eight years,” Bezos stated Wednesday. “He has, too.”
Bezos, talking publicly for the primary time since he vetoed The Post’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, defended the controversial transfer, saying, “I’m happy with the choice we made, and it was removed from cowardly.”
Bezos’ choice to finish presidential endorsements at The Post simply two weeks earlier than Election Day sparked intense backlash from its reporters and readers alike, ensuing within the resignation of almost one-third of the paper’s editorial board and 250,000 readers canceling their subscriptions. Current and former staffers additionally accused the Amazon founding father of partaking in “anticipatory obedience.”
Asked if he had anticipated the firestorm the choice set off, Bezos stated, “We knew that this was going to be perceived in a really huge approach, this stuff punch above their weight.”
In an op-ed printed three days after the newspaper introduced the choice, Bezos cited the necessity for a “credible, trusted, impartial voice,” which he reiterated on stage Wednesday, claiming the advantages of a presidential endorsement had been too small to be price including “to the notion of bias.”
“We’re scuffling with the problem that each one conventional media is scuffling with, which is a really troublesome and vital lack of belief,” Bezos stated.
Asked if potential retribution towards his different corporations, together with Amazon and the house exploration agency Blue Origin, factored into the choice to dam the endorsement, Bezos stated “that was definitely not in my thoughts.”
“The Post covers all presidents very aggressively, goes to proceed to cowl all presidents very aggressively, and this endorsement or non-endorsement is a drop within the bucket,” he stated.
“I’m a horrible proprietor of the Post from the perspective of [an] look of battle, he stated.
The Washington Post, which Bezos acquired in 2013 for $250 million, has struggled within the face of dwindling viewers site visitors and subscriptions. But Bezos steered Wednesday he has a plan to show across the newspaper’s fortunes.
“I’ve a bunch of concepts, and I’m engaged on that proper now. And I’ve a few small innovations there,” he stated. “So we’ll see.”
Bezos’ feedback come as tech executives have begun searching for to interact with Trump, together with round tech coverage. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg can be searching for an “lively” position in coverage discussions with Trump’s crew, an government for the corporate stated this week.
At the summit Wednesday, Bezos stated he isn’t involved in regards to the relationship between billionaire Elon Musk – whose SpaceX competes with Bezos’ Blue Origin and xAI competes with Amazon’s AI efforts – and Trump. He stated that he takes at “face worth” Musk’s commitments that he won’t use his political energy towards his company rivals.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai additionally briefly commented on the incoming Trump administration in a separate interview throughout Wednesday’s occasion. Pichai stated of his conversations with Trump, “he’s undoubtedly very targeted on American competitiveness, significantly in expertise, together with AI.”
