How the Bezos-Trump alliance began
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Jeff Bezos, center, shares a laugh with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony. Photo: Ricky Carioti, Pool/Getty Images
Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos last summer privately urged Donald Trump to pick Doug Burgum as Trump's vice president, saying he'd be an "excellent" choice.
Why it matters: Bezos' phone conversation with Trump in July — detailed in my forthcoming book, "Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power" — was a sign that Bezos was engaging with Trump on political issues months earlier than previously reported.
- It wasn't until late October — three months later — that Bezos spiked the Post editorial page's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, and his outreach to Trump came into focus.
Zoom in: The latest indication of Bezos' Trump-ward drift came Wednesday, when he announced that the Post's progressive-leaning opinion page would shift its mission to promote "personal liberties and free markets."
- The move was praised by Trump allies such as Elon Musk but created an uproar at the Post, where David Shipley, the opinion editor, resigned.
Flashback: Since he killed the Harris editorial, Bezos — like Musk, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other tech titans whose fortunes can be swayed by the president's decisions — has continued to publicly warm to Trump.
- On Nov. 6, the day after the election, Bezos praised Trump for an "extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory."
- The following month, Bezos dined with Trump at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. And in January, Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, attended Trump's inauguration, to which Amazon had donated $1 million.
The seeds of the Bezos-Trump alliance were planted in the July phone call. During the call, Bezos praised Trump for how he'd handled the attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
- Bezos also told Trump that Burgum would be a great choice for VP, according to two people with knowledge of the call.
- Burgum, who was North Dakota's governor at the time and like Bezos had made a fortune in the tech world, helped arrange for the call.
- Burgum earlier had told Trump that Bezos wanted to speak with him, and had given Bezos' contact information to Trump aides so they would recognize the billionaire's number when he called.
- Trump ultimately chose Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his VP nominee. Burgum is now Trump's Interior secretary.
Bezos' overture to Trump was a shift in their once-chilly relationship.
- Bezos, who also owns a rocket company, criticized Trump for his rhetoric during the 2016 campaign and joked about sending Trump into space.
- Trump tore into Bezos throughout his first presidency. Trump, who's been divorced twice, even chided Bezos for getting divorced. Trump was deeply angered by the Post's critical coverage of him, and derided the newspaper as the "Amazon Washington Post."
- Trump at one point during his first term advocated for then-Postmaster General Megan Brennan to raise shipping rates on Amazon packages, which she pushed back on.
What they're saying: Representatives for Trump and Bezos did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did a spokesperson for the Washington Post.
This story has been corrected to say Sánchez is Bezos' fiancée (not his wife).
