Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reiterated that he personally had no part in greenlighting Melania, the documentary on the current First Lady, but called it a “very wise business decision” for the tech giant.
“We have denied it. Melania’s office has denied it. It’s not true,” Amazon’s co-founder, former CEO and now executive chairman told CNBC on Wednesday when asked whether the project resulted from a visit he made to President Trump’s compound in Mar-a-Lago. “I had nothing to do with that. By the way, it appears it was a good business decision. You know, it did very well in theaters. It’s done very well on streaming. People are very curious about Melania. So even though I had nothing to do with it, you know, it appears that the Amazon team made a very wise business decision.”
The Brett Ratner-directed doc, which opened in late January, collected more than $16 million theatrically before moving to Prime Video in March. Ratner and the First Lady have all defended the steep cost of the film, which cost $40 million to make and another $35 million to market – outlandish sums for a documentary.
“I also had nothing to do with Project Hail Mary, which I regret because it’s an incredible success. I wish I had greenlit that,” Bezos said, referring to the recent Amazon MGM Studios’ blockbuster.
Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021, handing the reins to Andy Jassy.
The billionaire addressed Melania during a wide-ranging interview with the business network’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. Their conversation also touched on The Washington Post, income inequality, government subsidies and the tax code.
“It doesn’t make any sense for the government to subsidize, you know, certain agricultural crops, certain, you know, real estate transactions, Hollywood films.” It’s not clear what he was referring with the last bit although there’s an ongoing industry push for a federal film and TV production incentive to enhance current state tax credits.
More broadly, he objected to people vilifying the ultra-wealthy, including himself. To “point fingers and blame people … might feel good for 10 seconds, but it doesn’t accomplish anything,” he said.
“You know, I started thinking about this and doing some research,” Bezos continued. “A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense? So, people talk about making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes?”
When Sorkin asked instead about having the wealthiest pay more, Bezos agreed that could be a policy discussion but kept circling back to the idea of lower income people paying nothing.
“Let’s have that debate. But don’t pretend you know that [taxing the wealthy is] going to solve the problem. You could double the taxes I pay and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you … You can’t connect those two things, not logically.” (The conversation had moved on to the New York City public school system under Mayor Zohran Mamdani.)
As for The Washington Post, it recently went through punishing layoffs. Sorkin asked why.
“The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet,” said Bezos. “Because it’s a measure of its relevance. If people won’t pay for our product, we’re not doing, it’s not a good enough product. It’s like, you know, doing, it would be like poetry without rhyming. It’s too easy. … It’s got to be something that people will pay for because that’s a signal.
“When I bought The Post, it was very unprofitable. The newsroom was even smaller than it is today. And we turned it around in two years, it was profitable for six years. I put all that money back into The Post, grew the newsroom, so we’ve shrunk it back some now, but we haven’t shrunk it back to what it was when I bought it.”
