The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has levelled an accusation that Amazon isn’t paying its “internet taxes”. You can read the ambiguous, and slightly odd, tweet below.
The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017
Trump has a reputation for sounding off on Twitter, often late at night, that began before he was even a Presidential candidate but has continued now he is Commander in Chief. Covfefe.
What’s perhaps most interesting is that it’s not entirely clear exactly what Trump means. And the White House has so far declined to clarify the comment. What does Trump mean by ‘internet taxes’? Amazon.com claims to pay sales tax in the 45 US states (plus DC) that level them. And, for information, Amazon doesn’t own the Washington Post. It was a personal purchase Bezos made with his own wealth and enjoys complete editorial independence from the Amazon billionaire and Amazon itself.
And this isn’t the first time that Trump and Bezos have clashed. Although the two did meet meet at a gathering of tech executives earlier in Trump’s presidency, acerbic words were exchanged during the campaign and during transition. (We wrote this piece at the time: Bezos v Trump spills over onto Amazon Echo.)
It’s a slightly bizarre episode and we’ll see what Trump’s intentions in this case are. But then it could just be another inconsequential Trump tweet.
2 Responses
this one seems to be succinctly self-neutralising.
the [washington post]… not paying internet taxes is fake news.
I hate it when non-political sites I visit think they can promote their political comments and bias.
And what a stupid hair-splitting comment – Amazon doesnt own the WP, Bezos does.