Jeff Bezos's Survival Mode: Navigating Anti-Tech Backlash and Trump's Influence

Jeff Bezos is in survival mode.

Take it from me, a guy who has been writing a book about him for the last six years: the comparatively low-key Amazon founder doesn’t seek the spotlight unless he’s angling at something.

So, when Bezos sat this week for a nearly hour-long interview with CNBC — where he called for wiping out taxes on the poor and reconsidering Donald Trump — something major was clearly afoot.

He is positioning himself for the final chapter of the Trump era — and an even more chaotic anti-tech, anti-billionaire backlash that looks set to follow.

Bezos is smart enough to know that he, his investments, and his golden goose at Amazon need Trump in their corner going forward. No tech exec wants to anger the president and get an FCC headache like Disney or a feud with the Defense Department like Anthropic.

So, Bezos laid on the presidential praise quickly, if vaguely, in his interview.

“He is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term,” Bezos told anchor Aaron Ross Sorkin, a statement that defies the reality of this administration. Since 2024, the president has moved with fewer constraints than ever to demolish Washington, start wars, tariff the globe, use his position to enrich himself, and condone the killings of American protesters.

“Trump has lots of good ideas,” Bezos added, though he didn’t specify which. “He’s been right about a lot of things.”

At the same time, Bezos declared that he was not a Trump supporter. He said this despite extensive his company’s extensive contracts with the federal government and the millions of dollars Amazon has given to support Trump and his family through donations to the inauguration and White House ballroom, plus a multi-million dollar documentary about the First Lady.

Perhaps Bezos has seen the polling showing Trump’s popularity is tanking, or has a sense that after the chaos of Elon Musk’s DOGE, being the most Trump-aligned billionaire isn’t an asset.

“I’m on the side of America,” Bezos said, adding, “We get perceived as being like, you know, partisan.”

Bezos lacks the Steve Jobs star power, but even he knows when his image needs rehabilitation. Mass layoffs at the Bezos-owned Washington Post and the opulence of the Bezos-sponsored Met Gala were both hit with protests, but I suspect he’s worried about a deeper set of threats to his position.

An emboldened, sometimes violent, anti-elite and anti-tech streak is coursing through the country. California and New York leaders are selling voters on new billionaire taxes. Data centers are facing angry pushback. Commencement speakers who brought up AI were met with boos from undergrads who understandably worry their futures are being automated away.

Meanwhile, our billionaire-in-chief has faced multiple assassination attempts. Alleged UnitedHealthcare assassin Luigi Mangione is a folk hero, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s house has been shot up and hit with a Molotov cocktail.

Bezos is a savvy operator. Either he wins over the masses, or some pissed off part of the masses will come for him, stifling his plans for space and AI — or worse.

All this probably helps explain Bezos’s sudden tax push. He says he wants to eliminate taxes for most working-class people, while claiming populist politicians such as AOC and Zohran Mamdani are essentially phonies, people who are “picking a villain and pointing fingers” rather than making any sincere critique.

“Don’t pretend that that’s going to solve the problem,” Bezos told Sorkin in a huff. “You could double the taxes I pay and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens.”

Toward the end of his interview, Bezos delivered his overall pitch: America, swap the anti-elite anger for some pro-AI optimism.

“This is the best time to be alive in America,” he said. “Access to capital is so easy right now, it’s so good, and — I’m talking about for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs — and we should have so much optimism about the future.”

Bezos is starting to sweat but he's hoping you don't notice.