Amazon founder Jeff Bezos expressed optimism about President-elect Donald Trump’s next term, saying he is “very optimistic this time.”
“I’m actually very optimistic this time,” Bezos told The New York Times during his wide-ranging interview at the event.
“They seem to have a lot of power around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I’ll help him… We have too many regulations in this country,” Bezos was quoted as saying by the New York Post.
The comments follow Bezos’ October decision to stop The Washington Post, which he owns, from endorsing presidential candidates. The decision led to significant subscription cancellations and protests from longtime journalists at the publication.
Bezos explained his stance in a newspaper op-ed, stating that editorial endorsements create perceived bias when public trust in the media is low, without significantly influencing election results.
During the summit, Bezos expressed his intention to convince Trump that the media is not adversarial. “You’ve probably grown up in the last eight years,” he told reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin. “He has too. This is not the case. The press is not the enemy.”
In the past, Trump has criticized Bezos’ ventures, including Amazon and The Washington Post. In 2019, Amazon claimed that Trump’s bias had hurt its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract. The subsequent Biden administration later negotiated agreements with both Amazon and Microsoft.
Regarding Elon Musk’s role in Trump’s regulatory reform agenda, Bezos expressed confidence that Musk would not abuse his position to harm competitors, including Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin, which competes with Musk’s SpaceX.
