Jeff Bezos Reportedly Told Trump the Washington Post was His ‘Worst Investment’
“The people there are terrible”
Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos complained to President Trump about the Washington Post, calling it his worst investment, according to a new book by journalist Maggie Haberman.
This should come as a surprise to no one considering the massive amounts of money lost by the paper in recent years and the public resistance to change at the company by journalists and others. The people who work there behave as if the paper belongs to them.
FOX News reports:
Jeff Bezos reportedly told Trump the Washington Post was his ‘worst investment’ before staff cuts
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told then-President-elect Donald Trump at a December 2024 dinner that The Washington Post was his “worst investment” months before he authorized sweeping staff cuts at the newspaper, according to a forthcoming book by New York Times journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman.
Bezos reportedly vented to Trump about the people running the Post’s business side after the newspaper lost more than $100 million that year.
“The people there are terrible,” Bezos told Trump, according to an excerpt obtained by The California Post.
The book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” claimed Bezos contrasted the Post with his other companies while telling Trump that newspaper leaders were not following his direction.
“They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen,” Bezos said.
Trump, who had repeatedly criticized the Post’s coverage of him, complained directly to Bezos about the newspaper during the dinner, according to the book.
“This Washington Post is really unfair. You’ve got to take better care,” Trump told Bezos.
Swan and Haberman wrote that Bezos and Trump found common ground over their complaints about the paper, although they were frustrated for different reasons.
More from the New York Post:
Bezos this February authorized the sweeping downsizing of the celebrated Watergate paper, eliminating roughly a third of its workforce, including all staff photographers and the sports section.
Bezos’ candor with Trump was described by Swan and Haberman as part of a larger effort by Big Tech titans to cozy up with the incoming president, who had spent his four years in political exile railing against what he viewed as bias by news outlets and major internet platforms…
“In Trump’s telling, Bezos told him he had lost half his friends over the investment,” the authors write. “Bezos would tell others that wasn’t quite right: He hadn’t lost friends, but people close to him had urged him to sell the newspaper.”
Trump said in an interview for the book that he “hated” Bezos during his first term under the mistaken belief that the billionaire controlled what the newspaper wrote.
“He said they write stories about him. And I didn’t believe him the first time, first term. And I hated him for it,” Trump recalled. “And then I believed him.”
Jeff Bezos could dissolve the Washington Post tomorrow and few Americans would notice.
Unless you really want to read pieces criticizing Erika Kirk’s wardrobe.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Gee I don’t know. I would say that MacKenzie Scott and Lauren Sanchez were his worst investments. The former cost him billions and the latter is spending billions.
Far be for me to question if what Bezos is spending on Sanchez is worth it but he has the money to burn so as long as he is happy. I don’t see it, though. Her lips alone must have cost 7 figures.
Agreed.
Jeff should just close the doors and take the loss. Hang on to the name and logos and IP. Tell the staff good luck finding a job.
He should have invested in real manure instead of mental manure.
Really? How could he have been so clueless to not know that “the people there are terrible”?
“The people who work there behave as if the paper belongs to them.”
They were the original students in “students demand…!”
In reality- it’s not that hard to turn around. Fire everyone in the newsroom who can’t report the news objectively and contract out with random bloggers who can.
Telling the truth is far less difficult than lying.
Letting go of one’s hatred for other political views… well apparently that’s a tougher pill to swallow.
Can they hate him any more if he fires the worst of the troublemakers?
.
The fish rots at the head. Start there.
Hey, Jeff! That’s what Poshmark is for!
Sell it and let it rot.
Jeff Bezos complained to President Trump about the Washington Post, calling it his worst investment.
Trump said, “I understand completely.. I felt the same way after picking Pence.”
Bezos next purchase should be the NYT.
“journalist” Maggie Haberman
Bezos seems to me to be like Trump in regards to the paper. In his first term Trump thought that the hysteria of government employees would stop once he was elected and everyone would respect the Presidency. Bezos thought that once he bought the paper people would act like employees at his other companies not people who thought they could never be fired. Both got a rude awakening. Trump didn’t make the same mistake his second time around picking a far better cabinet and firing government workers, Bezos finally had enough and started firing people.
Easy peasy; tie compensation to the financial success of the paper.
If employees think they own the company, let them experience the realities of ownership; if you don’t sell a product the public wants, you don’t make money.
Or you can get an independent auditing firm in to ask each employee “What exactly is it you do here?” and do from there.
Leave a Comment