Trump-Bezos feud goes back to December 2015
A brief history of their back-and-forths
Amazon Web Services is blaming President Trump for the company's failure to secure a $10 billion government contract last year — but Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Trump's feud goes back much further than that.
In fact, their original 2015 spat resulted in Bezos joking that Trump should be sent to space. Since then, Trump has accused Amazon of hurting "tax paying retailers" and said it would be a "great idea" if employees at the Bezos-owned Washington Post went on a "really long strike."
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 200.15 | +2.56 | +1.30% |
While he was a candidate for president, Trump accused Amazon of avoiding paying taxes, which is something that many of its critics on the left have said too (the company owed federal income taxes for the first time in three years in 2019).
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"The Washington Post, which loses a fortune, is owned by Jeff Bezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, Amazon," Trump wrote on Twitter in 2015.
Bezos responded to Trump's tweet in one of his first-ever messages on the social media platform.
"Finally trashed by Donald Trump. Will still reserve him a seat on the Blue Origin rocket. #sendDonaldtospace," Bezos wrote, referencing the private space company he founded and has invested heavily in.
After Trump's election, Bezos congratulated him and wished him "great success."
But the tension between the world's richest man and the leader of the free world kicked up again when the president accused the Washington Post of being the "guardian" of Amazon.
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Trump has posted many similar tweets since.
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After the Department of Defense awarded a $10 billion contract to Microsoft, Amazon accused Trump of trying to steer the contract away from Bezos, even asking to depose Trump.
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Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump have feuded on and off for years.
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Amazon blames "improper pressure from President Donald J. Trump, who launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from [Amazon Web Services] to harm his perceived political enemy - Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and CEO of AWS's parent company, Amazon.com, Inc.," in a court filing made public in December.
FOX Business' Brittany De Lea contributed to this report.