Donald Trump’s second term in office has been markedly different from his first in both significant, impactful ways (the wholesale weaponization of the Justice Department, the mass deportations, the threats of genocide) and smaller stupid ones (spending $12 million on a reflecting pool only to make the water more green). Another big difference? The stance tech leaders have taken toward the president, which has gone from kicking him off their platforms to kissing his ass frequently and variously (with money, compliments, and a glass-and-gold plaque, and by attending his birthday party/cage fight). In the case of Jeff Bezos, kissing the ring has also apparently involved shitting on the staff of his own company for Trump’s benefit.
At a dinner in December 2024 shortly before the inauguration, Bezos reportedly told Trump that the Washington Post was a terrible investment and said “the people there are terrible,” according to a new book by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, revelations from which first appeared in the New York Post. “They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen,” Bezos told the president-elect — who spent much of his first term ranting about the storied publication, which he referred to as, among other things, a “garbage newspaper,” a “propaganda machine for Amazon,” and “the Enemy of the People.”
