As president, Donald Trump spent years insulting and threatening Amazon, the e-commerce giant founded by Jeff Bezos. Amazon sometimes hit back, claiming once that the company had been unfairly blocked from a lucrative government contract simply because Trump was angry at Bezos over coverage in the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post.
But in August, weeks after Trump formally secured the GOP nomination, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded Bezos in 2021, sought to establish a friendlier rapport with the former president, introducing himself in a phone call and outlining the company’s plans for the future.
The call concluded with Trump suggesting the company cut a large check for his presidential efforts, according to two people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount the private discussion. Trump told Jassy that he was going to win the election and that Amazon should help him because it would be in the company’s best interests.Jassy did not agree to make the contribution. But the call itself reflected signs of new engagement between Trump and key figures in the business empire overseen by Bezos, who remains executive chairman of Amazon.
CNN first disclosed the existence of the call, but the request for a contribution has not been previously reported.
After Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet during an attempted assassination at a July campaign rally, Bezos called Trump to say how impressed he was that the candidate had raised his fist after coming under fire, according to a person familiar with that conversation. Last week, executives from Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin, spoke briefly to Trump after a campaign stop in Texas. The encounter occurred on the same day that Post leadership announced that the newspaper would not be issuing an endorsement in this year’s presidential race or in future ones.
A Blue Origin spokesman said the meeting with Trump was arranged spontaneously when CEO Dave Limp, who was in Austin to meet with Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), learned that he would be departing from the same airport where the candidate was holding a rally. A Trump campaign spokeswoman said, “Business leaders across the country support President Trump because they know he’s a businessman with a proven track record of economic success from his first term in the White House.”
Spokespeople for Bezos and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: How Jeff Bezos’s growing business empire increasingly relies on Washington – The Washington Post
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