Bezos is “optimistic” about Trump’s new mandate and offers help to reduce regulations

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Wednesday that he is “optimistic” about President-elect Donald Trump’s second term and expressed some excitement about potential regulatory cuts in the coming years.

“I’m very optimistic this time,” Bezos said onstage during an interview at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York. “You seem to have a lot of energy around reducing regulations. If I can help you do it, I’m going to help you.”

“We have too many regulations in this country,” he added.

The comments followed Bezos’ decision in October to ban Washington Postof which it is the owner, endorsed a candidate for the White House, a measure that caused tens of thousands of people to cancel their subscriptions and protests from journalists with a long history in the field.

At the time, Bezos wrote in a newspaper op-ed saying that editorial endorsements create a perception of bias at a time when many Americans don’t believe the media, and do nothing to tip the balance in an election. .

On Wednesday, he indicated that he would try to convince Trump “not to think” that the press is the enemy.

“You’ve probably grown in the last eight years,” he told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. ”Him too. This is not the case. “The press is not the enemy.”

Trump had lashed out at Bezos and his companies, including Amazon and The Washington Post, during his first term. In 2019, Amazon alleged in a court case that Trump’s bias against the company hurt its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract. Joe Biden’s administration later sought a contract with Amazon and Microsoft.

Elsewhere in the interview, Bezos said he doesn’t expect Elon Musk, who has been tasked with reducing regulations in Trump’s next term, to use his power to hurt his business competitors. Bezos owns Blue Origin, a rival to Musk’s SpaceX.

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