The Bully and the Billionaire

Susan Estrich on Oct 31, 2024

It was a front-page story in The Washington Post back in October 2019. Amazon was in line to receive a $10 billion contract from the Department of Defense for cloud computing (the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract) when, at the last minute, the contract was awarded to Microsoft. Then-President Donald Trump has been outspoken about not wanting the contract to go to Amazon. He had been relentless, during his administration, in his attacks on the "Amazon Washington Post" and its owner Jeff Bezos for what he saw as its unfavorable and unfair coverage of his administration. Everyone, Amazon and The Washington Post included, connected the dots.

Amazon brought suit, challenging the award of the contract to Microsoft, claiming that "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" reflecting Trump's stated efforts to "screw Amazon" led the agency to opt for a proposal from Microsoft with "clear failures. "The question," the complaint stated, "is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends. ... President Trump's improper direct intervention, its upending of the procurement, and the President's personal goal of preventing AWS (Amazon Web Services) from receiving the JEDI Contract were widely reported at the time."

The complaint cited the stream of tweets from Trump that targeted Bezos, Amazon and the Post as evidence of the president's interference. As Trump attacked those targets, the company claimed, the Pentagon "took numerous actions to systematically remove the advantages of AWS's technological and experiential superiority" and changed its interpretation of certain technical requirements at the last minute.

"The most plausible inference from these facts is simply this: under escalating and overt pressure from President Trump, DoD departed from the rules of procurement and complied -- consciously or subconsciously -- with its Commander in Chief's expressed desire to reject AWS's superior bid," the company argued in its filing.

"President Trump's animosity toward Mr. Bezos, Amazon, and the Washington Post is well known, and it originates at least in part from his dissatisfaction with the Washington Post's coverage of him from before he assumed office," Amazon claimed. "Since at least 2015, President Trump has lashed out against that coverage, and over time he has extended his attacks to Mr. Bezos, Amazon, and the Washington Post, often conflating the three as one."

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Trump only had to do it once. Bezos learned his lesson. The bully and the billionaire. The bully won.

Bezos surely knew that when he vetoed The Washington Post's endorsement of Kamala Harris, there would be plenty of questions raised of what happened to the Post's proud tradition of speaking truth to power. He surely evaluated the risks to the paper's reputation and circulation. It was, in his mind, all worth it to avoid offending the bully.

You might think that one of the richest men in the world would have the resources to stand up to a bully. Billionaires should be hard to bully. But Trump is a bigger and more unscrupulous bully than most. If you wonder just how big, or how dangerous, then look at Bezos, who let Trump make a fool of him to avoid the offense of the expected endorsement. If Bezos was afraid of him -- more afraid of him than the enormous hit he and his newspaper took -- consider what that means.

Trump has already made it crystal-clear that he intends to reward his friends and punish his enemies. Bezos knows he means it. It was worth all the heat he took, and knew he would take, to get off the enemies list. Whatever you might think of him, Bezos did not get to where he is by being foolish. He knows what Trump is capable of, and what he will do, and even one of the richest and most powerful men in the world is not rich enough or powerful enough to stand up to him.

What does that say about Trump?

========

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.