Jeff Bezos Has Just As Much at Stake in This Election As Elon Musk

• Jeff Bezos’s newspaper The Washington Put up determined to not endorse a presidential candidate.
• The billionaire has been much less distinguished within the election than Elon Musk — however nonetheless has a lot at stake.
• Bezos’s Blue Origin is working with NASA and the Pentagon because it performs catch-up with Musk’s SpaceX.

The Washington Put up’s resolution to not endorse a presidential candidate has put the political highlight on its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, who, like many billionaires, has tried to remain out of it.

Executives from Bezos’ rocket firm Blue Origin, together with CEO Dave Limp, spoke with Donald Trump on Friday, The Related Press reported. That was the identical day the newspaper introduced it could not endorse a presidential candidate for the primary time in 36 years.

The New York Instances reported that the choice was made by Bezos. The Washington Put up Guild stated on X that an endorsement of Kamala Harris had already been drafted.

The Put up’s writer and CEO, William Lewis, stated in an announcement that reporting about Bezos’ position involvement had been inaccurate.

“As Writer, I don’t imagine in presidential endorsements. We’re an unbiased newspaper and will assist our readers’ potential to make up their very own minds,” Lewis stated.

The choice has sparked the resignations of the Put up’s editor at giant, Robert Kagan, and columnist Michele Norris. Former government editor Marty Baron stated the transfer was “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”

“Donald Trump will see this as an invite to additional intimidate proprietor Jeff Bezos (and others),” Baron stated on X.

A lot of the main focus in latest months has been on the previous Amazon CEO’s house entrepreneur rival, Elon Musk. Musk has campaigned extensively for Trump, who stated in a single marketing campaign speech that “Elon promised” that “we are going to attain Mars earlier than the tip of my time period.”

Bezos, who has stated nothing publicly about both candidate, has a lot at stake within the election.

Like all non-public house corporations, Blue Origin depends closely on federal contracts and is competing with SpaceX for presidency and navy tasks.

The rocket agency has a $3.4 billion contract with NASA to construct a lunar lander for its Artemis V mission, which is because of carry folks to the moon for the primary time in many years.

Blue Origin was additionally chosen in June as a most well-liked supplier for Pentagon contracts price $5.6 billion — the primary time it has been given the inexperienced gentle to launch nationwide safety satellites.

The corporate is gearing as much as launch its largest rocket but, the 320-foot New Glen, later this yr.

SpaceX’s lead

The partially reusable rocket is Blue Origin’s reply to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, however is years not on time after a sequence of setbacks.

That delay has seen SpaceX emerge because the clear chief within the non-public house race.

The Texas-based firm launched its Falcon Heavy rocket almost 100 instances final yr and is testing the even-larger Starship rocket that it plans to ship to Mars in two years’ time.

SpaceX and Blue Origin have regularly clashed over NASA contracts and rocket launches through the years — and Musk’s ardent assist of the Republican candidate means he might wield vital affect in a possible Trump administration.

The SpaceX founder has been closely concerned within the marketing campaign, donating tens of tens of millions to a Trump marketing campaign PAC and turning out for Trump in essential battleground states.

Blue Origin didn’t reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider.

Amazon assaults

Bezos stays the most important shareholder in Amazon. His near-9% stake is the supply of most of his $211 billion web price, placing him behind solely Musk’s $277 billion fortune on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Trump took intention at Bezos earlier than he was elected president in 2016 and continued his assaults on Amazon after coming into the White Home.

In April 2018 Trump stated on Twitter that Amazon was “costing the USA Put up Workplace large quantities of cash for being their Supply Boy.”

The subsequent month The Washington Put up reported that Trump had pressured the USA Postal Service to boost the speed it expenses Amazon to ship packages.

Amazon Net Companies, its cloud computing unit, argued that the choice to award a $10 billion Division of Protection contract to Microsoft in 2019 was associated to Trump exercising undue affect within the procurement course of.

Amazon filed a authorized problem to the choice and the “Jedi” contract was scrapped by the Pentagon two years later.