Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reportedly told President Donald Trump that the Washington Post was his worst investment and complained that its employees “don’t listen” during a private conversation months before major changes were made at the newspaper.
According to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a book by journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman scheduled for release on June 23, Bezos expressed dissatisfaction with the Washington Post during a December 2024 dinner with President Trump. The account was detailed in an excerpt obtained by the New York Post.
“This Washington Post is really unfair. You’ve got to take better care,” Trump told Bezos, the book says.
“The people there are terrible,” Bezos told Trump. “They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen.”
The book also recounts Trump’s changing view of Bezos. During his first term, Trump said he blamed the Amazon founder for stories published by the Post and believed Bezos exerted direct control over newsroom decisions.
In February 2025, Bezos announced that the Washington Post‘s opinion section would focus on defending “personal liberties and free markets,” a move that prompted criticism inside and outside the newsroom. The shift followed an earlier controversy over the newspaper’s decision not to endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which triggered a wave of subscriber cancellations.
A year later, the Washington Post carried out a sweeping restructuring that eliminated roughly one-third of its workforce, including its sports department and hundreds of newsroom positions, as the newspaper sought to address mounting financial losses.