A forthcoming book by New York Times reporters Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman claims Jeff Bezos privately criticized The Washington Post during a December 2024 dinner with President Donald Trump, shortly before later changes to the paper’s opinion pages and staff reductions.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reportedly told President Donald Trump that buying The Washington Post was his “worst investment” and criticized the newspaper’s business operations during a private dinner in December 2024, according to a new book by New York Times journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman.
The claim appears in “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” which includes an account of Bezos discussing the newspaper with Trump more than a decade after purchasing it from the Graham family.
Bezos bought The Washington Post and related assets in 2013 for $250 million. According to an excerpt obtained by The New York Post, he later described the acquisition to Trump as “his worst investment.”
The book also claims Bezos told Trump, “The people there are terrible.”
According to the excerpt, Bezos focused much of his frustration on the business side of the publication.
“They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen,” Bezos said, according to the book.
The reported comments came after The Washington Post lost more than $100 million that year.
Roughly two months after the dinner, Bezos directed the newspaper’s opinion section to emphasize what he described as “two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” The shift came after subscribers objected to the paper’s decision not to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The newspaper’s financial challenges predated the reported conversation with Trump. In addition to losses in 2025, The Washington Post also lost about $100 million in 2024 and $77 million in 2023.
Bezos also cut dozens of jobs in 2025, though the publication continued losing money despite those reductions.
The change in the opinion section marked a notable shift for the newspaper, which had long been known for a strongly liberal editorial posture. Bezos said the pages would focus on personal liberties and free markets.
The Post’s business practices have also drawn legal scrutiny. Last week, the newspaper was hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging it secretly used readers’ personal data to charge different subscription prices.
According to CourtHouse News, the lawsuit accuses the Bezos-owned outlet of creating “pricing profiles” based on subscribers’ reading habits, demographics, browsing activity and other personal information.
The new book’s account adds another layer to the public scrutiny surrounding Bezos’ ownership of The Washington Post, tying together reported private criticism, financial losses, staffing cuts, an editorial shift and a new lawsuit challenging the paper’s subscription practices.
Original article
Comments