Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 4, 2024 in New York City.
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Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos “And his cronies” are creating “the most serious threat to American democracy” – the president-elect Donald Trump – one washington post On Monday, the columnist issued a warning as he resigned from his position at the Bezos-owned newspaper.
columnist Jennifer Rubin is the latest post staff Exits after series of friendly gestures to Trump action By Billionaire Bezos, Amazon and other big tech companies after the November election.
Rubin told CNBC on Monday that she believed it was important to publicly condemn Bezos, the Washington Post and other media outlets for taking a knee against Trump.
Rubin’s scathing criticism – aimed at ABC and Yuan CEO Mark Zuckerberg and “corporate-owned cable networks” – emerged as she announced a new media launch she co-founded, contrarianon the substack.
She said Contrarian will “offer fearless and unique reporting perspectives and cultural commentary without false balance.”
Rubin contrasted her new outlet with her previous employers and other media companies, some of which she said were “scrambling for Trump-friendly voices.”
“The corporate and billionaire owners of major media have betrayed the loyalty of their audiences and undermined journalism’s sacred mission – to defend, protect and advance democracy,” Rubin said in a statement.
CNBC has asked Bezos and a spokesperson for The Washington Post to comment on her Monday statement.
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin attends “Meet the Press” on Sunday, January 3, 2016 in Washington, DC.
William B. Plowman | William B. Plowman NBCUniversal | Getty Images
“The Post’s billionaire owner and conscripted management are lawbreakers. They undermine the values core to The Post’s and all journalism’s mission: integrity, courage, and independence.”
“I have no reason to stay at The Washington Post,” Rubin wrote. “Jeff Bezos and his cronies accommodated and enabled the most serious threat to American democracy — Donald Trump — at a time when a vibrant free media is more critical than ever to the survival and viability of democracy. important.
Rubin has considered himself a conservativeIn 2020, she stated that she no longer considered herself a conservative. She believed that “there is no conservative movement or party today” and “there is a Republican Party that is thoroughly racist and ideologically corrupted by right-wing nationalism.”
Since the fall, Bezos has been criticized for what he sees as moves to curry favor with Trump. That includes canceling the vice president’s planned editorial page endorsement Kamala Harris During the presidential election, Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and Bezos visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
On the day the news of the cancellation of the Washington Post endorsement broke, Trump met with executives from Bezos’ space exploration company Blue Origin in Austin, Texas, including CEO David Limp ( David Limp),
“None of us could have imagined that (former Washington Post publisher) Katharine Graham would send Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon a check for $1 million,” Rubin said in her home state, pointing out The ones were former presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Trump spent his first term sharply criticizing Bezos, online retail giant Amazon and the Washington Post. In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed $10 billion in losses Cloud Computing Contract Working with the Pentagon to Microsoft as Trump uses “undue pressure… to harm his perceived political enemy” – Bezos.
One of her colleagues, a former Post cartoonist Ann TernasMost recently, the newspaper refused to publish her cartoon, which depicted Bezos, Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong praying in front of Trump. The president-elect is so high on the air that she recently resigned from the paper.
The comic also depicts Mickey Mouse, the Walt Disney Company’s mascot. Disney, which owns ABC News, recently agreed to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit and said it would donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential foundation and museum.
Like Bezos, Xiong also canceled the Los Angeles Times’ plan to endorse Harris.
Mehta and Altman also donated $1 million each to Trump’s first fund.
Rubin told CNBC that the number of billionaires who have donated to Trump after becoming the target of his criticism is staggering.
“When will there be enough billions of dollars?” Rubin asked. “My impression is that these are the people best suited to resist authoritarianism, and it turns out they are the quickest to comply.”
“I think their economic interests are very dependent on the government,” she said. “For all the talk about Silicon Valley’s independence, they rely heavily on government generosity.”
“They didn’t become billionaires because they thought about other people,” Rubin said.
