To Cozy Up to Trump, Bezos Banishes Dissent From WaPo

Pete Tucker

Elon Musk (X, 2/26/25) gives his seal of approval to the new univocal Washington Post.

“Bravo, Jeff Bezos!”

That was the congratulatory message Elon Musk posted on X, the platform he bought for $44 billion in 2022 and subsequently turned into a pro-Trump bullhorn. Musk’s “bravo” was in response to Bezos' shocking announcement that he was taking his media outlet, the Washington Post, in a Trumpian direction as well.

The Post’s opinion section will now advance Bezos' “two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Anyone not on board with this “significant shift” can take a hike, Bezos seemed to tell Post employees, in a note he also shared on X (2/26/25).

That was Wednesday morning. By evening, Bezos was dining with President Trump.

'Those who think as he does'

Parker Molloy (Present Age, 2/26/25): "The audacity of claiming that free market ideas are 'underserved' in American media is staggering. Has Bezos somehow missed the existence of the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Bloomberg, Fox Business, CNBC and countless other outlets that have spent decades championing free-market capitalism?"

Bezos doesn't give any detail on what he means by "personal liberties," but in the context of the billionaire appearing behind Trump at the inauguration, and Amazon contributing $1 million to the inaugural festivities—on top of paying Melania Trump $40 million for her biopic—it's doubtful that his paper will be talking much about the myriad liberties under attack by the Trump administration.

“When billionaires talk about ‘personal liberties,’” media critic Parker Molloy (Present Age, 2/26/25) noted, “they're usually thinking about their personal liberty to avoid taxation and regulation.”

Meanwhile, as Bezos professes his love of personal liberties, “his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section,” said former Post executive editor Marty Baron (American Crisis, 2/27/25):

It was only weeks ago that the Post described itself as providing coverage for “all of America.” Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does.

Such limitations may not be limited to the opinion pages. Post media critic Erik Wemple penned a column about Bezos' directive—and, according to former Post editor Gene Weingarten (Gene Pool, 2/27/25), “It was spiked. Killed, in newspeak.”

'A wingman in the fight'

Michael Schaffer (Politico, 2/26/25): Bezos' "latest edict effectively rebrands the publication away from the interests of Washington and toward the politics of Silicon Valley—and looks likely to cost it a chunk of the remaining audience."

Bezos’ fidelity to his other pillar, “free markets,” is no less questionable, considering his companies hoover up billions of dollars in government contracts, are massively subsidized, and Amazon, which Bezos founded, is an egregious antitrust violator.

And somehow Bezos, the world’s third richest person, believes his so-called free market “viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.” But as Politico columnist Michael Schaffer (2/26/25) noted:

Between the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg and the Economist, there’s no shortage of outlets that are organized around a generally pro-market editorial line. For that matter, there’s the Washington Post. Do you recall the publication editorializing against the free market? Me neither.

Yet Bezos is now committed to turning his paper into a second Wall Street Journal—a project already under way, as Bezos’ handpicked Post publisher and CEO, Will Lewis, comes from the Journal, as does executive editor Matt Murray.

Naturally, the Journal’s editorial page (2/26/25) welcomed Bezos’ “free markets” pivot, writing, “It will be good to have a wingman in the fight.”

Despite Bezos’ claim that his views are underserved, it’s actually the lefty end of the spectrum for which that’s the case (FAIR.org, 10/9/20). But those wanting anything left of authoritarian capitalism will have to look elsewhere. “Viewpoints opposing [my] pillars will be left to be published by others,” Bezos wrote, adding, “the internet does that job.”

It’s unclear if Bezos was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat as he wrote these words, but it’s unmistakable that he’s aligning his paper with Trump’s so-called “America First” agenda. “I am of America and for America, and proud to be so,” Bezos wrote.

The answer wasn't 'hell yes'

Sara Fischer (Axios,  2/26/25): " Efforts by the Trump administration to scrutinize media have forced media, entertainment and tech companies to make difficult decisions about how far they will go to defend their editorial values."

As shocking as Bezos' groveling is, it’s just the latest in a string of extraordinary favors he’s done for Trump and the man Trump has turned much of the US government over to, Elon Musk.

Bezos and Amazon have thrown millions of dollars at the billionaire duo running our country. At the same time, the Post has been kind to both men, most noticeably when Bezos killed the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the election (FAIR.org, 10/30/24). For Musk, the Post not only spiked an ad critical of him, but also dismissed his Nazi salute on Inauguration Day as merely an “awkward gesture” (FAIR.org, 2/19/25, 1/23/25).

With Bezos' new directive, the Post is all but formalizing its lapdog arrangement with Trump and Musk. How this will impact the Post, which Bezos purchased from the Graham family for $250 million in 2013, remains to be seen. But the fallout has been swift, and it comes on the heels of a mass exodus of both readers and top talent since the election.

Now joining the exodus is Post opinions editor David Shipley. Bezos wanted Shipley to lead the Post’s rightward turn, but only if he was all in. “If the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no,’” Bezos told him. But Bezos’ directive was too much even for Shipley, who had previously proven his loyalty by spiking a cartoon depicting Bezos and other tech executives groveling before Trump (FAIR.org, 1/7/25).

'More like a death knell'

Margaret Sullivan (Guardian, 2/26/25): "I foresee a mass subscriber defection from an outlet already deep in red ink; that must be something businessman Bezos is willing to live with."

For those who remain at the Post, they do so warily.

Bezos’ “massive encroachment” into the opinion section “makes clear dissenting views will not be published,” wrote the Post’s Jeff Stein, who only days earlier had been promoted to chief economics correspondent:

I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I will be quitting immediately and letting you know.

Former Posties were also quick to weigh in. “Bezos' move is more than a gut punch; it’s more like a death knell for the once-great news organization,” wrote former Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan (Guardian, 2/26/25):

Bezos no longer wants to own a credible news organization. He wants a megaphone and a political tool that will benefit his own commercial interests.

Those commercial interests extend from earth into space.

“Amazon has a big cloud computing business. [Bezos' space company] Blue Origin is wholly dependent on the US government,” Marty Baron told Zeteo (2/26/25). “Trump can just decide that they’re not going to get any contracts. Is [Bezos] going to put that at risk? Obviously, he’s not going to put that at risk.”

“It’s craven,” said Baron, who led the Post for eight years, nearly all of them under Bezos:

He’s basically fearful of Trump. He has decided that, as timid and tepid as the editorials have been, they’ve been too tough on Trump. He’s saying they’re going to have an opinion page with one point of view.

'Contrary to the conspiracy theory' 

Back when the Washington Post had "full independence" from Bezos, it was running twisted columns denying that the billionaire had a lot of money (FAIR.org, 10/3/17).

There’s an irony in Baron calling out his former boss, when he spent years attacking others for doing so.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a hair’s breadth away from securing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, questioned whether his critiques of billionaires (like Bezos) and low-wage behemoths (like Amazon) might be contributing to the Post’s blistering coverage of him (FAIR.org, 8/15/19).

“Contrary to the conspiracy theory the senator seems to favor,” Baron said in response, “Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence, as our reporters and editors can attest.”

Fast-forward six years, and the mask is off, so much so that Baron now sounds like Sanders (to whom Baron owes a belated apology).

That the Post’s hard-right turn comes at a time when other corporate and billionaire-owned outlets are also cozying up to Trump, only makes this moment all the more fraught.

This alarming state of affairs highlights the importance of independent media watchdogs. “We launched FAIR nearly 40 years ago with warnings about the influence of media owners on news content,” FAIR founder Jeff Cohen said in an email:

The first issue of our publication featured a cover story on the corporate takeover of news written by legendary journalist and Media Monopoly author Ben Bagdikian. The recent antics of Bezos show that the need to scrutinize and expose corporate media owners is even greater today.