In an interview with CNBC, Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos praised President Donald Trump. He said, "I think [President Donald Trump] is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term." Bezos also said, "Trump has lots of good ideas and he's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due."
For whatever reason, Bezos did not explain how Trump has matured or list the various things Trump has been right about.
Bezos's compliments came at a time when 59% of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, while only 37% approve. A significant majority of Americans think the Iran war was a bad idea. Significant majorities of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration, the economy, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the cost of living.
So what does Bezos think Trump has done that is good? What does he think Trump has been so right about?
Bezos also said, "We need our business leaders to provide input into the administration regardless of who the president is." He further explained, "I'm on the side of America. That is so important. That is where business leaders should be."
Ah, perhaps there is a hint as to why he gave Trump such praise. According to Bezos, it is good for America when business leaders like him get to provide input as to what the federal government is doing. And Trump is letting tech executives like Bezos be involved.
And why is this apparently good? I certainly have a theory.
Things were not always rosy between Trump and Jeff Bezos. In 2019, Amazon sued the federal government on the grounds "that it had lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon because President Trump used 'improper pressure' to divert the contract from the company to harm its chief executive, Jeff Bezos." That same year, Trump posted on social media, insulting Bezos's stewardship of the Washington Post and seeming to take great enjoyment in the misfortunes Bezos was experiencing in his private life.
A little before the 2024 presidential election, as it became more clear that Trump would likely win the presidential election, there was a shift in how many large technology companies and their biggest owners/executives acted toward Donald Trump.
For instance, the Bezos-owned Washington Post announced 11 days before the 2024 election that it would not endorse a candidate for the first time in 36 years. This seemed to be a decision from Bezos himself and came despite that his paper was poised to publish an endorsement of Trump's opponent Kamala Harris.
So what changed for Bezos? Did Trump truly become more mature and disciplined in his late 70s? Or, did Bezos decide it would be better for his company and, by extension, him if he did what was necessary to curry favor with Trump?
Bezos's positive shift toward Trump is emblematic of how many top tech executives have similarly shifted. Take Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as another example. Trump had threatened to imprison Zuckerberg for life. Then, in the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Zuckerberg banned Trump from Facebook and Instagram, saying,
The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.
How has this righteous tech executive acted toward Trump, a man he blamed for helping to incite an insurrection, since he regained control of the federal government and pardoned or commuted the sentences of 1,600 plus insurrectionists and seditionists? Here is what Zuckerberg posted on Meta platform Threads soon after it became clear Trump had won the 2024 election.
Shortly thereafter, Zuckerberg made a pilgrimage to Trump's Florida club to meet with Trump.
Zuckerberg congratulated Trump in front of the entire world after Trump had baselessly threatened to imprison him for life and after he himself had publicly said Trump was trying to stage a coup to remain in office. He even journeyed to pay tribute to Trump. Shameless.
Other tech executives have debased themselves similarly. Many also congratulated Trump on his election, including executives from Apple, Google, and Microsoft, all of whom also had negative things to say publicly about the insurrection and politicians like Trump who incited it. Bezos also congratulated Trump.
Why have they rushed to cozy up to Trump?
The tech CEOs’ precise goals may vary. Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon all face federal antitrust lawsuits they may hope Trump will modify or drop. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, has billions of dollars in ongoing contracts with the U.S. government and could benefit from closer federal ties.
Microsoft's second-highest executive Brad Smith said, in an in a 2024 interview published in the weeks after Trump was elected, “AI is probably one of the most helpful tools available to make government more efficient and less costly,." He also said, “We could use a Manhattan Project just to put technology to more effective work to improve government across the board.” The Manhattan Project was a huge, expensive federal government project to develop atomic bombs during World War II.
And there we have the motive: to stay on good terms with Trump so they can expand their businesses, avoid legal trouble, and sell AI and other products and services to the federal government and the American people.
It has become clear from the remarkable push for data centers, the spying/tracking collaboration with the federal government, weird cultural manifestos, the replacement of workers with AI, etc. that the tech industry does not care about you or America. As soon as it became more economically advantageous to support and work with Trump than to resist him and voice platitudes about American democracy, they all flocked to him. The leaders of these tech companies care about nothing more than they care about building their fortunes, power, and prestige.