However the Submit has struggled to carry on to the industrial success it had reached throughout the first Trump administration, falling far behind its largest competitor, The New York Occasions. Its viewers has shrunk and monetary losses have ballooned.

“He’s a extremely rational particular person. I feel he was comfy dropping $20 million a 12 months. When it will get to $100 million a 12 months, I don’t know what his urge for food is for that,” says a former govt who labored intently with Bezos. “I don’t suppose for him it’s like a mission enterprise in the identical approach it might be for [the Graham family] or for the Sulzbergers [who own the New York Times].”

The Washington Submit chief govt Will Lewis solutions workers’ questions final 12 months. Bezos’ flip towards Trump has alarmed editorial employees, fueling an exodus of expertise and subscribers.

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Robert Miller/The Washington Submit/Getty Photos

This industrial wrestle occurred on the similar time that Bezos cozied as much as Trump and commenced intervening on the Opinion part, additional sinking morale throughout the newspaper. At the very least a dozen seasoned journalists have left to work for rivals.

Many noticed a direct hyperlink between his muzzling of the newspaper and rewards for his different enterprises. Hours after Bezos spiked the paper’s endorsement of Harris, Blue Origin chief govt David Limp met Trump at a rally in Texas. Former Submit editor-at-large Robert Kagan criticized the assembly as a “quid professional quo.”

Within the newest fracas, veteran journalist Ruth Marcus resigned final week, claiming that chief govt Sir Will Lewis had axed a column she had written criticizing Bezos’ overhaul of the Opinion part. “The Washington Submit I joined, the one I got here to like, shouldn’t be The Washington Submit I left,” Marcus mentioned of the choice.

But for all of the drama within the newsroom, public grievances lodged by senior journalists, and relentless media protection depicting the Submit in disaster, there may be little indication that Bezos is fazed.

“He’s a extremely robust man. He’s completely charming, however he didn’t get the place he was by being type and delicate. In that sense, I don’t know that he’s modified,” says the previous Submit govt. “I bear in mind him speaking in regards to the individuals he will get for the Amazon board, and he particularly picks individuals who don’t give a shit what different individuals suppose. He doesn’t need individuals on the board like ‘oh my god, we don’t air situation the warehouses?’ I feel he himself is like that, too.”

In January, greater than 400 Submit journalists signed a letter imploring Bezos to fulfill them about their issues. He didn’t reply.

“He’s taken the group in a sure path and appears decided to do this, for no matter motive that he hasn’t totally defined,” says Baron, who provides that he has not tried to contact Bezos about his objections.

“Fairly merely, I don’t suppose he cares what I feel.”

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