By Phil Baker – NYA
Few relationships in American business have changed as dramatically as that between President Donald Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
During Trump’s first term, the president repeatedly criticized Bezos, attacked Amazon over taxes and competition, and frequently denounced The Washington Post, the newspaper Bezos purchased in 2013. Today, the two men have become political allies, appearing together at White House events, speaking regularly, and publicly praising one another.
At the same time, Bezos’ companies have experienced a sharp increase in federal business, a development that is proving personal relationships with the president has paid handsomely.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal investigation, Blue Origin has secured a growing list of Defense Department and NASA contracts during Trump’s second administration. The company has expanded its role in the Artemis lunar program, won military launch work, and is positioned to compete for projects tied to the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative. Amazon Web Services has also experienced record levels of federal contracting. (Note: NYA has moved all its operations from AWS to Digital Ocean and Neil no longer sells or streams his music on Amazon.)
As Trump’s relationship with Bezos improved, Amazon donated $1 million to the president’s inaugural committee, paid $40 million to license a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, and spent $75 million to promote the film.
Bezos attended inaugural events, praised many of Trump policies publicly, and essentially neutered The Washington Post, firing most of its award-winning reporters and columnists and pulled back its planned endorsement of Kamela Harris.
Bezos has told confidants that he needed a more constructive relationship with Trump after Elon Musk emerged as one of the president’s closest advisers.
Musk’s SpaceX has long dominated the commercial launch industry and remains the federal government’s largest space contractor. Blue Origin executives reportedly feared falling further behind if SpaceX maintained both its technological lead and privileged access to the White House.
The Bezos story illustrates a broader shift in the relationship between business and government during Trump’s second term. Rather than keeping a clear separation between political leadership and private enterprise, many of America’s largest corporations have moved to build closer personal ties with the White House while simultaneously expanding their federal business. Many have donated to Trump’s political campaign funds and to businesses that are enriching him personally, a further below to democracy caused by Citizens United.
The fact that access to presidential power carries significant economic value in exchange for money has become one of the defining governance issues of the Trump presidency. It also plays a role in Trump amassing a multi-billion dollar at least $2.2bn in his first year back in office, according to a new financial disclosure report. That amount is unprecedented and shattered the norm of US presidents avoiding financial conflicts of interest in the White House.