Amazon founder, who owns Washington Post, draws Trump’s ire
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO, has been targeted by President Donald Trump in many of his posts on Twitter. Bezos is shown in Seattle on June 18, 2014. Credit: Getty Images North America / David Ryder
If crony capitalism means a system based on coziness between business and government leaders, maybe President Donald Trump’s attacks on Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos could be called acrimony capitalism.
Trump’s chosen tools for condemning Bezos are the usual Twitter tantrums laced with demonizing half-truths and outright falsehoods. On Thursday he tweeted:
“Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”
Actually, Amazon collects sales tax in the 45 states that require it. Other than that, the question of local and state sales-tax payments regarding internet companies overall has been more complicated than Trump describes.
As for the postal service, mail volume last year declined by 5 billion pieces. But the number of packages increased by 589 million — many of them from Amazon, as NBC News reported.
As for Amazon “putting many thousands of retailers out of business,” that’s possible, but it would be part of industrywide trends. Walmart megastores also hurt some retailers. What the Trump government could do about all that is anyone’s guess.
When assessing winners and losers, the Albuquerque-born, tech-wise Bezos, 54, can be said to have invented a business model enormously more profitable and successful than any of real estate heir Trump’s ventures.
But that probably isn’t the cause of Trump’s fury. Rather, this is most likely all about The Washington Post.
Bezos bought the newspaper for $250 million in 2013. For some time since, Trump has been deriding it as the “Amazon Washington Post,” though Bezos’ purchase was not done through Amazon. Coverage of the administration has been notably aggressive and its editorials acidly anti-Trump.
At times, however, the Post under this ownership has had coverage critical of Amazon. The paper’s coverage of a plan for an “Amazon key” — allowing its personnel to unlock customers’ front doors — prompted one columnist to call it “Silicon Valley at its most out-of-touch.” Another piece warned of Amazon becoming a monopoly.
The only American president to have left behind bankrupt casinos is looking frustrated. What’s in all this for America is anyone’s guess.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
