Amazon‘s founder Jeff Bezos expressed optimism about President-elect Donald Trump‘s upcoming term and said he is “very optimistic this time.”
“I’m actually very optimistic this time around,” Bezos stated during his comprehensive interview at The New York Times’ event.
“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,” New York Post quoted Bezos as saying.
These remarks follow Bezos’s October decision to stop The Washington Post, under his ownership, from endorsing presidential candidates. This decision resulted in substantial subscription cancellations and opposition from long-standing journalists at the publication.
Bezos explained his stance in a newspaper op-ed, stating that editorial endorsements create perceived bias when public trust in media is low, without significantly influencing election outcomes.
During the summit, Bezos indicated his intention to convince Trump that the media isn’t adversarial. “You’ve probably grown in the last eight years,” he told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. “He has, too. This is not the case. The press is not the enemy.”
Previously, Trump had criticised Bezos’s enterprises, including Amazon and The Washington Post. In 2019, Amazon claimed Trump’s prejudice affected their chances in securing a $10 billion Pentagon contract. The subsequent Biden administration later arranged contracts with both Amazon and Microsoft.
Regarding Elon Musk’s role in Trump’s regulatory reform agenda, Bezos expressed confidence that Musk wouldn’t misuse his position to disadvantage competitors, including Bezos’s space venture Blue Origin, which competes with Musk’s SpaceX.
