How fitting it is (poetically so) that Jeff Bezos would be Donald Trump’s arch-nemesis.
It is said that “If there’s anything rich people hate, it’s richer people.”
REASON #1 — Bezos is Richer & More Respected
Amazon.com creator Jeff Bezos’s net worth is well over 30 times Trump’s.
He can buy and sell Donald Trump 30 times over.
“Bezos is as rich as he claims, Trump never was,” said Michael D’Antonio, a political commentator and author of The Truth About Trump.
“He’s ranked many hundreds of places higher than Trump on the scale of wealth and he did it without any inheritance of the sort that Trump had. He’s respected in a way that Trump never was as a businessperson. He is circumspect in the way that Trump is not. He’s everything that Trump hates.”
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Bezos, 54, has poured part of his wealth into Blue Origin, a maker of rockets that aims to lead space tourism. Its owner, whose father is a Cuban immigrant, has also donated to progressive causes such as same-sex marriage and to mostly Democratic candidates in elections.
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Since the Republican insurgent’s shock victory, Bezos has followed the example of special counsel Robert Mueller by maintaining a sphinx-like silence and refusing to be baited. Nothing, it seems, infuriates the president more. D’Antonio said:
“Trump doesn’t know what to do with someone who won’t play and it would be a grave mistake for Bezos to engage. He doesn’t have to.
“Bezos is just ontologically the opposite of Donald Trump and that gets under Trump’s skin. What he really hates is someone who appears to be incorruptible. He reads that as being superior, haughty, holier than thou. It’s what he hates about Mueller: that Mueller is an emblem of rectitude. There’s no evidence that Bezos is anything but a tough business person.”
Reason #2 — Amazon.com is Crashing Trump’s Net Worth
In 2015, Trump was rated as 121st in Forbes Magazine’s 400 Top Richest in America.
In 2016, 156th.
In 2017, he dropped to 248th.
A tough New York real estate market, a costly lawsuit and an expensive presidential campaign all contributed to the declining fortune of the 45th president. After months of digging through financial disclosures and public property records and conducting dozens of interviews,
Forbes now estimates POTUS' net worth at $3.1 billion, down from $3.7 billion a year ago. He drops to No. 248 in the ranks of the richest people in America, down from No. 156 in 2016.
The biggest hit was to Trump's real estate portfolio, which is weighted heavily toward New York City. Values of several Manhattan properties, particularly those on or near Fifth Avenue, have dropped, shaving nearly $400 million off his fortune. Some of his golf properties, including ones in Miami, Ireland and Scotland, have also declined in value, as some would-be guests stayed away, apparently offended by the president's politics and bombast. Trump's cash pile is down an estimated $100 million since last year, after he spent $66 million on his campaign and $25 million settling a lawsuit over Trump University. As always, we refined our estimates based on new information uncovered during months of reporting.
Trump lost another 11 places in 2018.
But what does this have to do with Jeff Bezos, other than Trump’s natural envy?
Appearing on CNN Tuesday, Forbes assistant managing editor Kerry Dolan leveled blame for Trump’s real estate losses on e-commerce’s domination over retail, mentioning Amazon. Specifically citing the lease of the Niketown store and the Trump Tower property, Dolan said that retailers are suffering—even on the high end.
It would appear that Amazon’s strategy of e-commerce over brick and mortar retail is winning, and that is having an effect on real estate values, she added.
So, how does Trump respond? He attacks the e-commerce companies any way he can, with fabricated stats, against the advice of the Postmaster General.
And he singled out Amazon.com
The reports about [Postmaster General] Brennan make the personal nature of Trump’s statements more obvious than ever. Trump has framed his stance on shipping rates as a defense of the Post Office, which he claims is losing money on its contract with Amazon. But Brennan herself has reportedly tried to convince the president he’s incorrect. According to the Washington Post, Brennan has explained, in conversations with Trump stretching back at least to 2017, that the Post Office’s relationship with Amazon is beneficial.
Those arguments, from the head of the body he claims to be going to bat for, seem irrelevant to Trump. The president has reiterated his claims that Amazon is ripping off the USPS regularly since the start of his reported conversations with Brennan, including in late March and early April. At the same time, he made inaccurate claims that Amazon didn’t collect state sales taxes.
Trump then promptly called the Postmaster General a “fool”
REASON #3 — Bezos Owns the Washington Post
Since Feb. 2015, Trump has tweeted negatively about the Post 46 times. He not only calls the paper “Fake News,” but calls their reporters “Fake.” He has been tweeting negatively about Bezos since December, 2015.
The Post has been a leading force in telling the truth about Trump and his administration.
Donald may well remember that the WaPo was instrumental in taking down another Republican president, and not that long ago.
Larry Flint used the paper for his famous full-page ad:
Trump was absolutely gleeful about AMI taking down Bezos’s marriage, rubbing it in as much as he could. You know, Mr. Three Marriages, porn-star fucker.
Yet, not a word from him on Bezos’s response to AMI’s recent threats.
AMI responded. Poorly. But Trump hasn’t responded at all. I wonder why.
REASON #4 — POWER
Amazon is singularly positioned to be the sole provider of cloud-based service to the US Pentagon.
“EVERYBODY IMMEDIATELY KNEW THAT IT WAS FOR AMAZON”: HAS BEZOS BECOME MORE POWERFUL IN D.C. THAN TRUMP?
The deal for an obscure $10 billion Pentagon contract suggests the extent to which Jeff Bezos is gobbling up the swamp—without the guy in the White House even batting an eye.
The controversy involves a plan to move all of the Defense Department’s data—classified and unclassified—on to the cloud. The information is currently strewn across some 400 centers, and the Pentagon’s top brass believes that consolidating it into one cloud-based system, the way the CIA did in 2013, will make it more secure and accessible. That’s why, on July 26, the Defense Department issued a request for proposals called JEDI, short for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure. Whoever winds up landing the winner-take-all contract will be awarded $10 billion—instantly becoming one of America’s biggest federal contractors.
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If you think the JEDI contract is big, consider this: Last year, working for Bezos, Rung helped pass the so-called Amazon amendment, a provision buried in a defense authorization bill that will establish Amazon as the go-to portal for every online purchase the government makes—
some $53 billion every year.
President Trump may enjoy firing off incendiary tweets attacking Amazon. But Bezos is quietly finding new ways to bolster his empire with billions in federal tax dollars.
And the Pentagon, it appears, is helping him do it.
The “swamp” strikes back?