How Jeff Bezos made peace with Donald Trump

But the Post has struggled to hold on to the commercial success it had reached during the first Trump administration, falling far behind its biggest competitor, The New York Times. Its audience has shrunk and financial losses have ballooned.

“He’s a highly rational person. I think he was comfortable losing $20 million a year. When it gets to $100 million a year, I don’t know what his appetite is for that,” says a former executive who worked closely with Bezos. “I don’t think for him it’s like a mission business in the same way it would be for [the Graham family] or for the Sulzbergers [who own the New York Times].”

The Washington Post chief executive Will Lewis answers employees’ questions last year. Bezos’ turn toward Trump has alarmed editorial staff, fueling an exodus of talent and subscribers.

Credit:

Robert Miller/The Washington Post/Getty Images

This commercial struggle occurred at the same time that Bezos cozied up to Trump and began intervening on the Opinion section, further sinking morale across the newspaper. At least a dozen seasoned journalists have left to work for competitors.

Many saw a direct link between his muzzling of the newspaper and rewards for his other enterprises. Hours after Bezos spiked the paper’s endorsement of Harris, Blue Origin chief executive David Limp met Trump at a rally in Texas. Former Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan criticized the meeting as a “quid pro quo.”

In the latest fracas, veteran journalist Ruth Marcus resigned last week, claiming that chief executive Sir Will Lewis had axed a column she had written criticizing Bezos’ overhaul of the Opinion section. “The Washington Post I joined, the one I came to love, is not The Washington Post I left,” Marcus said of the decision.

Yet for all the drama in the newsroom, public grievances lodged by senior journalists, and relentless media coverage depicting the Post in crisis, there is little indication that Bezos is fazed.

“He’s a really tough guy. He’s totally charming, but he didn’t get where he was by being kind and gentle. In that sense, I don’t know that he’s changed,” says the former Post executive. “I remember him talking about the people he gets for the Amazon board, and he specifically picks people who don’t give a shit what other people think. He doesn’t want people on the board like ‘oh my god, we don’t air condition the warehouses?’ I think he himself is like that, too.”

In January, more than 400 Post journalists signed a letter imploring Bezos to meet them about their concerns. He did not respond.

“He’s taken the organization in a certain direction and seems determined to do that, for whatever reason that he hasn’t fully explained,” says Baron, who adds that he has not tried to contact Bezos about his objections.

“Quite simply, I do not think he cares what I think.”

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