The world’s second richest person is picking a Twitter fight with the leader of the free world.
After President Joe Biden tweeted Friday that making “the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share” would help bring down inflation, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos responded by calling it misdirection.
You want to bring down inflation?
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 13, 2022
Let’s make sure the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.
Bezos retweeted Biden and wrote that while raising corporate taxes and taming inflation are both worth discussing, “Mushing them together is just misdirection.”
Bezos wrote that “The newly created Disinformation Board should review this,” a reference to a new Department of Homeland Security working group about combatting disinformation.
The newly created Disinformation Board should review this tweet, or maybe they need to form a new Non Sequitur Board instead. Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection. https://t.co/ye4XiNNc2v
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) May 14, 2022
On Sunday, Bezos responded to another Biden tweet, this one from the @POTUS account about the deficit being lowered by $1.5 trillion.
Under my predecessor, the deficit increased every single year.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 14, 2022
This year, we’re on track to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion – the biggest one-year decline ever.
It matters to families, because reducing the deficit is one of the main ways we can ease inflationary pressures.
While the deficit has been reduced, it comes as stimulus and aid passed earlier in the pandemic under former President Donald Trump comes to an end, and Bezos retweeted an argument that Biden shouldn’t get credit for it.
Bezos wrote that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., is actually the one to thank, for halting additional stimulus and forcing Biden to scale down spending; “only Manchin saved them from themselves,” Bezos said.
In fact, the administration tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an already over-heated, inflationary economy and only Manchin saved them from themselves. Inflation is a regressive tax that most hurts the least affluent. Misdirection doesn’t help the country. https://t.co/a8cygcunEG
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) May 15, 2022
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it wasn’t a surprise Bezos is opposed to Biden’s proposal.
“It’s not a huge mystery why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul,” Jean-Pierre said at the White House briefing Monday.
Amazon saw record profits after the COVID-19 pandemic began because of shoppers stuck at home. The company made a record $35 billion profit in 2021, and avoided paying about $5.2 billion in corporate federal income taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Amazon entered the pandemic as the most popular big tech company, with 91% favorable rating, according to a tech survey by the technology news website The Verge, that was released just days before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The most recent survey from The Verge, released in Oct. 2021, found Amazon’s favorable rating slip from 91% to 87%, as its unfavorable rating rose from 9% to 13%.
In April, Amazon workers in Staten Island became the first in company history to unionize, and Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met earlier this month with organizers working to unionize at companies, including Amazon.