How Jeff Bezos Really Feels About Besieged 'The Washington Post': Laments It's His Worst Investment and a $100Million Blackhole — 'The People There are Terrible… They Don't Listen'
Jeff Bezos's true feeling towards The Washington Post revealed in conversation with Donald Trump.
June 18 2026, Published 8:09 a.m. ET
Jeff Bezos privately gave Donald Trump a shocking assessment of the Washington Post by describing the publication as his worst ever investment, according to new claims.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the Amazon boss, 62, reportedly complained to the president, 80, over dinner "the people there are terrible" while lamenting losing over $100million at the paper.
'My Other Companies, They Listen'
Bezos slammed The Washington Post during private exchange with Trump.
He allegedly told Trump: "They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen."
The exchange, revealed in new book Regime Change by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, also featured Trump telling Bezos what he thought of the publication.
Trump reportedly told Bezos: "This Washington Post is really unfair. You've got to take better care," and Bezos told others that "people close to him had urged him to sell the newspaper."
Two months after their dinner, Bezos ordered the Washington Post’s opinion pages to promote "two pillars: personal liberties and free markets" — as subscribers peeled off in protest of the paper withholding its endorsement from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
'Lost Half His Friends Over The Investment'
Bezos had deep regrets over his purchase of the newspaper.
Back in February, the billionaire authorized the sweeping downsizing of the celebrated Watergate paper, eliminating roughly a third of its workforce, including all staff photographers and the sports section.
Bezos's honest conversation with Trump was described by writers Swan and Haberman as part of a larger effort by Big Tech titans to cozy up with the incoming president, who had spent his four years in political exile railing against what he viewed as bias by news outlets and major internet platforms.
"Bezos commiserated with Trump over their December dinner, indicating that he, too, was deeply frustrated with the Post, though for a different reason," the authors wrote.
"In Trump’s telling, Bezos told him he had lost half his friends over the investment.
Trump Initially 'Hated' Bezos
The president was not a fan of the Amazon boss during his first stint as president.
"Bezos would tell others that wasn’t quite right: He hadn't lost friends, but people close to him had urged him to sell the newspaper."
Trump admitted in an interview for the book that he "hated" Bezos during his first term under the mistaken belief that the Amazon founder controlled what the newspaper wrote.
"He said they write stories about him. And I didn’t believe him the first time, first term. And I hated him for it," Trump recalled. "And then I believed him."
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Bezos, here with wife Lauren Sánchez, made drastic changes to the Post following Trump dinner.
It’s unclear how Bezos currently views the Post. The paper’s former publisher and CEO Will Lewis — whom Bezos paid a $3 million salary — was tossed out shortly after this year’s mass firings for partying at the Super Bowl, sparking a firestorm of criticism over the tone-deaf optics.
Before slashing its newsroom, the Post had in January 2025 eliminated 4% of its staff, primarily in the ad department.
Jeff D’Onofrio, who formerly worked at CafeMedia and Tumblr, has replaced Lewis in an acting capacity and said he is "going to fight like hell for this institution" and recently has approved new content and licensing deals to bring in revenue from OpenAI, Apple News+ and Alexa+.
