“Yes, we know you own the Washington Post and Blue Origin, which have billions of dollars in cloud computing contracts with the federal government,” Jorgenson responded to the editorial board before asking if Bezos was “worried about retaliation.” .

“I didn’t say this, but many experts have pointed this out. Yes, in a book published in September, Trump said he was watching Mark Zuckerberg closely and that Zuckerberg would spend the rest of his life in prison. “He did something illegal in this year’s election, and perhaps coincidentally, a lot of billionaires have attended a lot of the fancy parties Trump is at, to stay in his orbit,” Bezos explained.

“I didn’t say this, but many experts have pointed this out. Yes, in a book published in September, Trump said he was watching Mark Zuckerberg closely and that Zuckerberg would spend the rest of his life in prison. “He did something illegal in this year’s election, and perhaps coincidentally, a lot of billionaires have attended a lot of the fancy parties Trump is at, to stay in his orbit,” Bezos explained.

“Remember 50 years ago when our editorial section didn’t regularly support candidates? he asked. “Before Watergate? » Jorgenson noted wryly.

“So you remember.” Let’s do this again to keep the tradition. I’m sure there won’t be a massive reaction to that.”

It’s unclear whether Jorgenson will face any repercussions because of the video, but no one can accuse him of cowardice.

In an editorial published Monday evening Bezos insisted that concerns about his company had no impact on his decision to decline to publish the editorial board’s endorsement.

He cited public perception of media bias as one reason. “We must be accurate, and we must believe we are accurate,” Bezos wrote. He also discussed the public’s loss of trust in the media, without mentioning the more than 200,000 people who reported a loss of trust in WaPo by canceling their subscriptions.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” he added, in addition to creating “a perception of bias.” Bezos did not explain why, if the endorsements don’t matter, he canceled Harris’s under circumstances that ensured maximum attention was paid to the cancellation.

Bezos also did not specifically address the New York Times report that he made his decision more than a month ago, but for unknown reasons did not inform staff and even allowed to the editorial board to write in support of Harris before killing him. it goes out. However, he denied that the timing was suspicious: “I would have liked us to make this change earlier than planned, at a time further away from the elections and the emotions that surrounded them. This was inadequate planning, not an intentional strategy.

The fact that Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp met with Donald Trump on the same day Bezos’ decision was also unrelated, he insisted. “I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who wanted to present this as anything other than a decision in principle. But the fact is that I didn’t know about this meeting in advance.