Amazon founder Jeff Bezos battles with President Biden online over taxes

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is trolling President Joe Biden on Twitter. After Biden on Friday connected lowering inflation with corporations paying “their fair share,” Bezos quipped, “The newly created Disinformation Board should review this tweet, or maybe they need to form a new Non Sequitur Board instead.” He said that conflating lower inflation with higher corporate taxes amounted to “misdirection.”

His full tweet: “The newly created Disinformation Board should review this tweet, or maybe they need to form a new Non Sequitur Board instead. Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection.”

Still bristling, Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, fired again Sunday, the DealBook newsletter reports. He lauded Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia senator who has often declined to vote with other Democrats on economic issues, halting additional stimulus plans.

“Manchin saved them from themselves,” Bezos wrote, plunging the company into politics at a fraught time internally, amid an employee unionization push. Externally, many executives recently have been trying to stay out of difficult debates, given the backlash some companies have faced.

Wrangling with the government over taxes on Twitter means calling public attention to a touchy topic for Amazon. The company reported nearly $36 billion in US pretax income in 2021 yet said it owed only about $2 billion in federal taxes. That’s a 6 percent tax rate — less than a third of the rates both corporations and workers must pay. When Biden unveiled plans to raise rates and close tax loopholes last year, he singled out Amazon, saying, “I don’t want to punish them, but that’s just wrong.” Amazon did not respond to DealBook’s request for comment.

Disney last month lost its special tax status in Florida after opposing a law limiting gender identity discussions in schools. Now, Republican lawmakers at the state and federal levels are drafting similarly retributive legislation for politically minded businesses. But for executives, it’s a balance. Many workers, shareholders and customers are demanding that corporations speak up, and pressure could increase now that abortion rights have become a major midterm election issue. So Amazon’s current chief executive, Andy Jassy, is probably not looking for this fight right now.

Bezos, for his part, quietly butters up the government, just like Elon Musk. While both have been publicly critical of the Biden administration, Bezos’ Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX spend significant resources lobbying officials to pick up their space exploration tabs and to win NASA contracts. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, has accused the two billionaires of using NASA like an ATM. He tweeted at Bezos on Saturday about Amazon’s labour issues and soaring profits: “No, Mr. Bezos. Disinformation is Amazon spreading anti-union propaganda & forcing workers to attend illegal captive audience meetings. Disinformation is Amazon blaming a 17 percent price increase on ‘inflation’ while making a record $35 billion in profits & avoiding $5 billion in taxes.”