Biden vs. The Billionaire

A simmering feud between President Biden and Jeff Bezos has spilled into the open after the Amazon founder went on the offensive to criticize the White House’s approach to inflation and taxing wealthy corporations.

Biden has frequently used Amazon as a foil as he pushes for higher taxes on the richest Americans and big companies to help fund his economic agenda, and he recently vocally backed unionization efforts at the company.

But Bezos’s tweets accusing the president of “misdirection” and of risking worse inflation with his economic proposals, and the White House’s sharp response, marked an escalation in what has become an increasingly adversarial relationship.

The online back-and-forth also followed Biden’s recent public support of efforts to unionize among Amazon workers, and the administration’s support for a key antitrust bill that would weaken Amazon’s control over its e-commerce platform.