Biden Administration And Jeff Bezos Square Off Over Inflation

Topline

A spat between the White House and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos over President Joe Biden’s fiscal policies intensified Monday, with Bezos accusing Biden of disregarding inflation while the White House claimed the billionaire is looking out for his own interests.

Key Facts

Crucial Quote

“It doesn’t require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the president is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told several media outlets.

Contra

“Look, a squirrel!,” Bezos tweeted in response Monday afternoon. “They understandably want to muddy the topic. They know inflation hurts the neediest the most. But unions aren’t causing inflation and neither are wealthy people.”

Contra

Economist and Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Larry Summers defended Biden for tying inflation to taxes on Monday, calling Bezos’ position “mostly wrong.” Summers—who criticized Biden last year for seeking a large Covid-19 relief bill that could worsen inflation—said raising taxes would control inflation by reducing aggregate demand. Despite Bezos’ claims to the contrary, Summers has also argued in the past the Build Back Better package was unlikely to markedly worsen inflation, noting in a PBS NewsHour interview last year the bill mostly offset new government spending through tax increases.

Key Background

Bezos is the third-richest person on Earth, with a net worth of about $137 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates. The relationship between Biden and Bezos—who has donated to both Democrats and Republicans in recent years—is somewhat nebulous. Bezos hailed Biden’s 2020 defeat of former President Donald Trump, who was openly contemptuous of the Amazon chair, and Bezos said last year he supports both increasing infrastructure spending and hiking corporate taxes—two key priorities for the Biden Administration. However, Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair has pushed for antitrust investigations against Amazon, and Biden appeared to endorse the campaign to unionize Amazon warehouses last month.

Tangent

Bezos has become slightly more outspoken on Twitter in recent weeks, a shift from his previously sporadic—and often uncontroversial—presence on the social network. Last month, he suggested a push to acquire Twitter by Elon Musk—a fellow billionaire space entrepreneur—could be complicated by Musk’s business dealings in China. “Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?,” Bezos asked, before later clarifying that the answer is, “probably not.”