After the Washington Post announced that it won’t endorse any presidential candidate in this election, calls for boycotting Amazon trended on X as Amazon and Washington Post both are owned by Jeff Bezos. Reports claimed that Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post editorial board’s idea of endorsing Kamala Harris as it was his call to not upset Donald Trump and hence the decision to not endorse anyone was taken.
Amid anger over the decision, Donald Trump Friday met with the executives at Blue Origin — the space company owned by Jeff Bezos. According to reports, Trump met with David Limp, the CEO, and Megan Mitchell, its vice president of government relations.
‘An endorsement for Harris was written’
A lot of unconfirmed inside information is floating around after the WaPo announced its decision. According to one report, an endorsement of Harris was drafted but was not published as the go-ahead from Bezos was awaited. The decision not to publish that endorsement was made by Bezos alone.
A Daily Beast report said publisher Will Lewis fought Bezos “tooth and nail” to prevent him from nixing the draft that endorsed Kamala Harris. But then Lewis had to announce the decision that the paper would not endorse any presidential candidate this year.
Eight columnists of the paper — E.J. Dionne Jr, David Ignatius, Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank, Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin, Karen Tumulty, and Perry Bacon Jr — issued a strong but measured joint statement condemning the action by Bezos in which they said: “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them—the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”
