The New Yorker this week tries to delve into what Jeff Bezos is doing with the Washington Publish, after he and his fiancee Lauren Sanchez loved a distinguished place at Donald Trump’s inauguration, and after the Amazon founder made a number of different high-profile strikes which might be seen as him shifting the long-revered journalistic establishment right into a route that’s pleasant to the president’s MAGA agenda.
Really, nobody on this prolonged New Yorker article may say for certain what Bezos’ imaginative and prescient for the Washington Publish could be — together with Bezos, who declined to talk to author Clare Malone. However a former senior Publish editor urged to Malone that the world’s second wealthiest man might be not making any massive strikes with out consulting his socialite girlfriend.
“I think Lauren is very influential,” the previous senior editor stated. “Maybe not in the hands-on decisions throughout the Post, but certainly in the orientation of it.”
CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos and companion Lauren Sanchez attend the Vainness Truthful Oscar Celebration on the Wallis Annenberg Heart for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, California, on March 2, 2025. (Picture by Michael Tran / AFP) (Picture by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP through Getty Pictures)
It’s not clear what Sanchez’s politics are, however the former Los Angeles-based leisure reporter appears to love being on the nexus of consideration and energy — normally whereas carrying tops and robes that showcase her well-known décolletage. For this and different causes, together with her much-maligned Blue Origin area trip in April with Katy Perry and Gayle King, the Day by day Beast has dubbed her America’s “Marie Antoinette.”
Sanchez started an affair with Bezos whereas she was nonetheless married to Patrick Whitesell, a prime Hollywood expertise agent, and Bezos was nonetheless married to Mackenzie Scott, a Princeton-educated novelist and the mom of his 4 kids. The Nationwide Enquirer realized in regards to the affair and compelled Sanchez and Bezos to go public with their relationship in 2019.
Sanchez clearly likes to encompass herself with wealthy and well-known mates, who don’t simply embrace celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Katy Perry and Eva Longoria. She additionally has been identified to socialize with such distinguished MAGA world figures as Ivanka Trump and Bettina Anderson, Donald Trump Jr.’s new socialite girlfriend, based on the New Yorker.
Her connection to Ivanka Trump probably deepened after she and Bezos bought their third property on Indian Creek Island, the coveted South Florida gated neighborhood that’s generally known as Billionaire Bunker, the place Ivanka lives along with her husband Jared Kushner. Sanchez additionally with Bezos on the Mar-a-Lago dinner earlier than Christmas when Melania Trump spoke a couple of documentary she was creating about her personal life; two weeks later, Bezos’s Amazon licensed the primary woman’s documentary for $40 million, with as a lot as $28 million going on to her.
Sanchez clearly appreciated standing with Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and different tech billionaires — the so-called “oligarchs” — at Trump’s inauguration, close to Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and different Trump members of the family. Sanchez additionally notoriously wore what seemed to be a lacy, white peek-a-boo bra or bustier prime — and nothing else — beneath her designer jacket.
The New Yorker article quotes individuals who interpret Bezos’s makes an attempt to curry favor with the Trump administration as these of a businessman trying to defend his monetary pursuits throughout unsure political occasions. It additionally notes that the Publish has been struggling financially for the previous few years, whereas prime staffers have been “leaving in droves” over frustration in regards to the paper’s seeming lack of route and the management Bezos has put in cost.
In the meantime, the article additionally described Bezos as selecting to accompany Sanchez to glitzy occasions or on luxurious European holidays, quite than to be current for the chaos that a few of his selections have unleashed on the Washington Publish. In the course of the tumultuous summer time earlier than the 2024 election, he and Sanchez island island hopped across the Mediterranean aboard his $500 million superyacht, whose prow is graced with a sculpture of a winged goddess thought to resemble Sanchez.
Government chairman of Amazon Jeff Bezos and girlfriend US actress Lauren Sanchez attend the Vainness Truthful Oscars Celebration on the Wallis Annenberg Heart for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, California, on March 10, 2024. (Picture by Michael TRAN / AFP) (Picture by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP through Getty Pictures)
In the meantime, days earlier than the Kennedy Heart screening, Bezos introduced one other main shift on the paper that was seen as capitulating to Trump and as pursuing a “relationship with a new and potentially dangerous administration,” as Bezos’s media mogul buddy Barry Diller acknowledged to the New Yorker.
The Publish’s Opinions part would henceforth characteristic items “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” and “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others,” Bezos stated.
The night that Bezos introduced this new route, he had dinner with Trump, based on the New Yorker. It’s not identified if Sanchez additionally attended the dinner, as she has previously. However Trump provided reward for what Bezos is doing on the Publish, saying, “Jeff Bezos is trying to do a real job with the Washington Post, and that wasn’t happening before.”
Bezos, after all, made himself an enemy of Trump throughout his first administration due to his possession of the Publish. Amongst different issues, the Publish broke the story of Trump’s lewd remark to “Access Hollywood’s” host Billy Bush about grabbing ladies’s genitals weeks earlier than the 2016 election. Quickly after Trump’s first inauguration, the Publish débuted its new motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” whereas Trump subsequently grew to become “obsessed” with Amazon and thought of utilizing his presidential energy to deliver an antitrust lawsuit in opposition to the corporate, the New Yorker stated, citing a report in Axios.
In the course of the early years of Trump’s first administration, Bezos was nonetheless married to Scott. He additionally bought the most important non-public dwelling in Washington D.C. for $23 million with the concept that he and Scott would revive “the legacy of Kay Graham and her great socializing — bringing smart, smart, interesting people together in a social context,” the Washingtonian journal reported.
However by the point the home “made its debut” in January 2020, Bezos had a brand new muscle-bound physique and a brand new life companion, because the New Yorker reported. His co-host for the black-tie get together that night time wasn’t Scott however Sanchez, and the company included Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and different notable figures from Trump’s first administration, comparable to White Home adviser Kellyanne Conway and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.
With the beginning of Trump’s second administration, it stays to be seen whether or not Bezos and Sanchez will begin up a brand new custom of internet hosting gatherings at their D.C. mansion, with company together with a brand new cohort of Trump administration officers. In fact, Bezos and Sanchez are most likely busy proper now gearing up for his or her lavish Italian wedding ceremony in June. In case you imagine British tabloids just like the Day by day Mail and The Solar, Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are on the visitor listing.
