‘Bezos’ extortion claim under review by prosecutors’
NEW YORK CITY — Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, did not become the world’s richest man by refusing to do what it takes to win.
And now that he finds himself in a mud fight with the supermarket tabloid that exposed his extramarital affair, he is showing off the same drive that helped him turn a simple idea — selling books on the Internet — into an all-purpose, $780-billion powerhouse.
Bezos has risked significant personal embarrassment in taking on American Media Inc., the company that owns The National Enquirer, which last month devoted 11 pages to the tale of his extramarital affair.
But with a personal fortune of more than $130 billion, he has the means to torment his tormentors.
And as he showed Thursday with his surprise blog post, which accused the tabloid publisher of “extortion and blackmail,” Bezos is willing to get dirty in the pursuit of victory.
He has attacked American Media right where it hurts — its shaky legal position — and the strategy is showing early signs of paying off.
Federal prosecutors are reviewing Bezos’ claim that he has been extorted, according to two people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
And those prosecutors have planned a meeting with Bezos’ representatives, one of those people said.
The Enquirer exposé detailed Bezos’ affair with Lauren Sanchez, a former host of the Fox show “So You Think You Can Dance.” It appeared a day after Bezos announced on Twitter that he and his wife of 25 years, novelist MacKenzie Bezos, were getting divorced.
Jeff Bezos wrote the blog post himself, according to one person close to him, who was not authorized to speak publicly, and several lawyers reviewed it before he hit publish.
In the post, he said American Media had threatened to publish compromising photographs of him, including a “below the belt selfie,” if he did not publicly affirm that The Enquirer’s reporting on his affair with Sanchez was not motivated by political concerns.