A puzzling dilemma

While Amazon’s opponents now have the most powerful bullhorn on their side, they aren’t entirely comfortable with the association.

Some are concerned about the president’s motivations for his attacks, which people close to Trump have said are often triggered by negative coverage of his administration in The Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Bezos. Trump has mingled his attacks on Amazon and the newspaper in some tweets, including one in early April slamming “the Fake News Washington Post, Amazon’s “chief lobbyist”.”

Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a think-tank that has become a vocal critic of the power of tech companies, said he believed Amazon was worthy of action by regulators in part because of its power in the book market. But he also said he found Trump’s efforts to “personalise law enforcement” troubling.

“What he’s doing is a threat to democracy, but so is Amazon,” Stoller said. “That’s the dilemma.”

Still, after Trump launched another Twitter tirade against Amazon’s deal with the Postal Service, Stoller jumped on board on Twitter. “On the post office shipping charges Trump is correct and oddly aligned with postal employees while Bezos isn’t, so I’m going to stick with the postal employees,” he wrote.