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 promoting “the most serious threat to American democracy” – President-elect Donald Trump – washington post On Monday, the columnist issued a warning as he resigned from his position at the Bezos-owned newspaper.
columnist, Jennifer Rubinis the latest post staff Billionaire Bezos resigns after taking a series of Trump-friendly steps 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 what she described as a knee-jerk approach to Trump.
Rubin thought for years that he was 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.”
Rubin’s scathing criticism Monday — 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 Rubin’s statement on Monday.
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin appears on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, January 3, 2016, in Washington, DC.
William B. Plowman | William B. Plowman NBCUniversal | Getty Images
“The Post’s billionaire owners and conscripted management are lawbreakers,” Rubin wrote. “They undermine the Post’s mission and the core values of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. .
“There is no reason for me to stay at The Washington Post,” she 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.
Since the fall, Bezos has been criticized for what he sees as moves to curry favor with Trump. These include the cancellation of a planned Washington Post editorial page endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election, Amazon’s $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural fund, and Bezos’ trip to Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla. Visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
News of the withdrawal of the Washington Post’s endorsement came on the day Trump met in Austin, Texas, with executives from Bezos’ space exploration company Blue Origin, 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 the statement, referring to It was 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 Rubin’s colleagues, former Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, recently resigned from the paper after the paper refused to publish one of her cartoons depicting Bezos , Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong pleading before President Trump. above them.
The comic also depicts Mickey Mouse, the mascot of the Walt Disney Company. 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.
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