Washington Post and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos hit two milestones after the most recent stock market rally. He nudged out Bill Gates as the world’s richest man -- briefly -- and became the first person to have a net worth of more than $90 billion.
“When markets opened on Thursday, Bezos had a net worth of $90.6 billion, putting him $500 million ahead of Microsoft founder Bill Gates,” Forbes reported on July 27. Amazon stock has since fallen and as of 12:00 p.m. July 28, Bezos is trailing both Gates and Warren Buffett.
Despite suggestions that Bezos is a libertarian, the billionaire’s politics have consistently leaned left. For example, he spent $2.5 million to support Washington state legally recognizing gay marriage in 2012. And when he bought The Washington Post in 2013 he said “The values of The Post do not need changing,” despite its firm liberal bias.
Bezos has given $21,200 to Democrats since 2000 -- almost 3 times as much as he gave to Republicans. He has also given $85,000 to Amazon’s PAC, which has also consistently given more to Democrats than to Republicans. In 2016, its two largest recipients were Hillary Clinton (who received $394,819) and Bernie Sanders (who received $105,290), and it have 2.5 times as much to Democrats as to Republicans.
While Bezos never endorsed Clinton for president, he has openly criticized President Donald Trump -- both during and after the election. Trump has also repeatedly attacked Bezos, The Washington Post and Amazon on Twitter.
Trump accused Bezos of owning The Post “for purposes of keeping taxes down” at Amazon in a series of tweets in December, 2015. Bezos responded by offering to #sendDonaldtospace as part of his Blue Origin rocket project.
In October 2016, Bezos told The Guardian Trump “erodes our democracy” by “threatening retribution to people who scrutinize him,” and “saying he might lock up his opponent.” “These aren’t appropriate behaviors,” Bezos concluded.
After Trump was elected, Bezos seemingly change his tone:
Congratulations to @realDonaldTrump. I for one give him my most open mind and wish him great success in his service to the country.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 10, 2016
The Bezos-owned Washington Post did not react the same way to Trump’s election.
It added the phrase “Democracy Dies in Darkness” under The Washington Post logo after the inauguration.
The Post has also churned out countless anti-Trump articles, from insisting business leaders “dump Trump” (despite positive economic signs), to claiming Trump “stole my desire to look for a partner” and getting kids to mock Trump’s tweets. Post executive editor Marty Baron even claimed in May Trump’s presidency “feels like” Watergate.
