Who Owns Amazon

Amazon 🐔🐔🐔🐔

Capitulation Rank: Obeying
Category: Online/Platform 
Market Cap: $2.37 trillion

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people in the world. His private holdings include companies with deep business ties to federal agencies. Chief among these entanglements is Blue Origin, Bezos’ space-exploration company, which has either secured or is pursuing billions of dollars in NASA contracts to launch a network of satellites and build rockets, a space station and a lunar lander — if Trump sees it worthwhile to reward Bezos’ loyalty. The company also sees cozying up to Trump as essential to getting any government help to thwart antitrust enforcement, and weaken privacy, labor and consumer-safety protections.  

Following the Nov. 5 election, Bezos tweeted “big congratulations” to Trump, calling his win “an extraordinary political comeback.” He later told an interviewer that he’s “super optimistic” about the Trump administration. “I’m going to help him,” he added. Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and spent $75 million to buy the rights to and promote a propaganda film about Melania Trump that Melania herself co-produced.

Bezos has leveraged his ownership of the Washington Post to curry favor with Trump. Two weeks prior to the 2024 election, Bezos pulled the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, announcing that its editorial board would no longer endorse presidential candidates. He and his deputies at the paper have since restricted progressive commentary from its editorial pages and  blocked the publication of a Post political cartoon about Bezos cozying up to the administration. This series of managerial missteps has caused a number of high-level newsroom defections, and 325,000 readers canceled their subscriptions.

Bezos’ ham-fisted  decisions have undermined the Post’s editorial independence and business prospects. As readers have abandoned the newspaper, related financial losses prompted Bezos and his executive team in February 2026 to lay off about 30 percent of the Post’s staff, including 300 journalists. The cuts gutted the paper’s team of international correspondents and led to the elimination of entire sections.

“Bezos is one of the richest people in the history of the world. He could run the Post at a loss …. or he could probably sell the paper to someone who would keep its current staffing levels,” wrote former Post writer Perry Bacon. “But Bezos is keeping the paper, likely because he wants to curry favor with the Trump administration and have influence in Washington.”

Amazon goes to war

Amazon’s AWS cloud services do billions of dollars in business with the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Interior and the NSA. The technology is used to host many of the databases and systems the Department of Homeland Security and its subsidiaries — including ICE and Customs and Border Protection — use. 

These multimillion-dollar contracts provide cloud infrastructure for data storage, analytics and biometric systems, including more than $250 million from DHS to host many of the databases and systems used to track, monitor and deport immigrants.

DEI Doublespeak:

Amazon complied in advance. It cut back its DEI programs in December 2024. It deleted DEI language from its 2024 annual report. In January 2025, the company stated that it would be halting DEI initiatives. And Amazon revised its positions on diversity in its “Our Positions” webpage.

What It Owns:

In addition to its online shopping business, the company owns dozens of online services and applications including 1-Click, Alexa Internet, Amazon Appstore, Amazon Cash, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Web Services, Kindle Store, Twitch and Zappos. It also owns the production facility MGM Studios and Kuiper Systems, which is a planned Low-Earth Orbit satellite broadband-telecommunications-services company. It also owns a number of subsidiaries in the grocery, consumer electronics, health-care services, logistics and other industrial sectors.

Money & Influence Game:

Amazon paid lobbyists $19,140,000 in 2024, and Amazon employees made $8,193,808 in contributions to political candidates (2024 cycle). (SOURCE: Center for Responsive Politics)