Billionaire Jeff Bezos congratulated President-elect Donald Trump on winning the presidential election Wednesday morning, less than two weeks after he prevented The Washington Post from running an endorsement for Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Bezos, who founded Amazon, bought The Post in 2013.
"Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory," Bezos wrote on X. "No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing [Trump] all success in leading and uniting the America we all love."
Although publisher William Lewis announced that The Post would discontinue making presidential endorsements, the newspaper said Bezos killed an endorsement for Harris after the editorial board had drafted a column backing Harris.
In an Oct. 28 opinion column, Bezos said that he was at least in on the decision to kill the endorsement and wishes he had done it sooner.
"Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, 'I'm going with Newspaper A's endorsement.' None," Bezos wrote. "What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one."
Several columnists and editors resigned from The Post after the Harris endorsement was pulled.
More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions for The Post following the newspaper's decision to block an endorsement of Harris for president, National Public Radio reported Oct. 28.
At a campaign rally in the lead-up to Election Day, Trump gloated about Bezos' decision, and similar ones by other major media outlets, not to endorse a candidate.
"They’re saying, 'This Democrat’s no good. They're no good,' and they think I’m doing a great job," Trump said, The Hill reported. "They just don’t want to say it."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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