Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is meeting with Donald Trump next week, the president-elect said Thursday, highlighting his contacts with tech titans, including those with extensive contracts with the US government, in the run-up to his return to the White House.
“Bezos is coming up next week,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC after he rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
Trump said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had met with him as well and noted his extensive contact with Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
“I want to get ideas from them,” he said of business leaders. “Look, we want them to do well.”
Bezos has a range of business interests that touch on the federal government. Blue Origin, his rocket company, has contracts with NASA. Amazon, mostly through its cloud computing arm, is a major contractor for defense, intelligence, and other federal agencies. And during Trump’s first term, the president lashed out at the billionaire over coverage of his administration by the Bezos-owned Washington Post. The newspaper opted not to endorse a candidate for president this election.
Bezos said he was “very optimistic” about Trump’s second term during an appearance at The New York Times’ DealBook summit earlier this month.
“I am very optimistic this time around, I am very hopeful, he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation, and if I can help him do that, I am going to help him,” Bezos said.
Musk, also a sizable federal contractor, has been a frequent guest of Trump’s since the November election. Musk was also asked to help run a federal cost-cutting initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency.
(c) Washington Post