Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos may the world’s second-richest man, but he typically stays out of messy public spats. In 2020, Bezos openly supported Biden’s presidential run and has supported many progressive causes over the years but usually remains on the sidelines of the day-to-day political battles.
That is, until recently, when Bezos began lobbing barbs at Joe Biden, via Twitter, on topics of the economy including inflation and gas prices.
The feud bubbled up over the July 4th weekend when Biden had released a statement criticizing gas station owners and demanding that they lower their prices at the pump immediately. Someone should tell Biden, or whatever White House minion posted the tweet, that gas stations make little profit from actually selling gas. Most of their profit comes from selling red bulls and slushies.
Bezos responded to Biden’s tweet accusing the White House of misunderstanding basic economics:
In a tweet on Saturday, Biden said, “this is a time of war and global peril,” and demanded the companies lower gasoline prices, which have soared to about $5 a gallon in many parts of the country.
“Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now,” the president said.
Bezos soon after wrote on Twitter: “Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this. It’s either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.”
For Bezos to bother responding speaks volumes about the hole the Biden administration has dug itself into. Bezos is an out and proud Democrat sharing very liberal views with Biden on most things.
Many are wondering what sparked Bezos to join the political fray and directly confront Biden over such a dumb and misguided tweet. Perhaps it’s the attention Elon Musk has been getting, or perhaps Bezos truly feels like Biden is in so far over his head that someone in the Democratic Party needs to start speaking up.
Some have pointed out that perhaps Bezos is feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse after gleefully supporting Biden in 2020 and congratulating him on his White House victory:
Bezos’ comment did not go unnoticed, however, and while many praised the billionaire, there were many who hit out at him for his previous vocal support for Biden, including an Instagram post where he congratulated the Democrat for winning the 2020 presidential election.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum by Russia in 2013, simply tweeted: “Buyer’s remorse.”
Pedro L. Gonzalez, associate editor at Chronicles magazine, said: “Bezos criticizing is ironic because: as a company, Amazon overwhelmingly supports Biden.
“Bezos pours hundreds of millions of dollars into the Democratic Party’s machine. Bezos owns the Washington Post, which does nothing but run cover for Biden.”
It’s true that Amazon is a rather liberal company supporting progressive policies for the most part, and Bezos purchased The Washington Post, a very liberal paper blatantly supporting practically everything Biden does.
Why then did Bezos feel the need to lash out from his personal Twitter account toward the President?
Maybe Bezos is just trying to stay relevant in a world where other more outspoken billionaires are taking up all the oxygen. On the factual points, Bezos is correct, the White House doesn’t understand inflation or doesn’t want to admit how poorly Biden’s policies have failed to slow it down. Furthermore, the gas station tweet was even more ludicrous as if the President can simply “demand” private entities adjust their prices based on the whims of the White House Twitter account.
When global influencers like Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Jeff Bezos all begin criticizing the Biden administration loudly and publicly, Democrats have very few places to hide their policy failures any longer.
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