Jeff Bezos spent an excellent chunk of Friday tweeting about the whole lot from his critique of slidedecks to heartfelt remarks about his father.
However his nightcap garnered essentially the most consideration, because the Amazon founder took goal at a tweet from President Joe Biden’s account.
Biden’s message suggesting that taxes on firms akin to Amazon may also help deliver down inflation appeared to get beneath Bezos’ pores and skin. It’s uncommon to see the Amazon chairman publicly take goal on the administration.
Biden final yr particularly referred to as out Amazon throughout a speech outlining his infrastructure spending plan. He cited a 2019 analysis highlighting 91 Fortune 500 corporations that didn’t pay federal revenue tax in 2018 — “together with Amazon,” Biden famous, whereas not mentioning another corporations.
Amazon final yr reported $2.3 billion in federal revenue tax expense, as part of its total tax contribution.
Elected officers, progressive activists, and teachers haven taken goal at Amazon previously for reportedly paying nothing in federal revenue taxes. Researchers and journalists got here to that conclusion by calculating the tax deferrals and credit Amazon is eligible for. Federal tax legal guidelines additionally enable the corporate to delay fee of the invoice.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a frequent critic of Amazon, called out Bezos earlier this month, saying that each he and Amazon don’t pay federal revenue taxes in a given yr.
President Biden final month voiced support for workers when discussing the historic unionization at an Amazon warehouse in New York Metropolis.
Bezos in 2015 tweeted at former President Trump, saying he would reserve a seat for the presidential candidate on one in every of his Blue Origin rockets. He later said the tweet was a mistake.
Final month Bezos responded to a tweet from Elon Musk about changing Twitter’s HQ right into a homeless shelter. Musk is within the course of of shopping for Twitter for $44 billion.
