Weeks after dining with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has struck a massive licensing deal involving future First Lady Melania Trump.
According to Puck News, Amazon has agreed to pay $40 million in order to license a documentary and a limited series about Mrs. Trump. The documentary is set to be directed by disgraced Hollywood director and producer Brett Ratner, who in 2017 was accused of sexual assault and harassment by several high-profile actresses.
The film is set to debut in mid-2025 and, according to Amazon, will reveal “an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look” at the first lady’s life.
It’s unclear what percentage of the $40 million will go directly to the president-elect’s third wife, but Amazon’s cash-heavy deal with the Trumps is just the latest in a string of overtures the company and its leadership have made to the incoming administration. Last month, Amazon donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund, around the same time Bezos flew to Florida to dine with Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago resort.
Days before the election in November, Bezos intervened to stop a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris by The Washington Post, which he purchased in 2013. “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos wrote in an op-ed explaining his decision. “What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
The billionaire also insisted that there was no “quid pro quo” involved in his decision.
Staff at the newspaper were furious, and scores of readers canceled their subscriptions in protest. In the months since, a string of high-profile editors and writers have left the paper or resigned from its editorial board. Earlier this week, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from the paper after the paper killed her cartoon depicting Bezos and other prominent Silicon Valley figures paying tribute to a statue of Trump.
“To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary,” Telnaes wrote in a Substack post announcing her departure from the paper. “That’s a game changer … and dangerous for a free press.”
“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump,” she wrote. “My job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job.”
While there is no evidence connecting the suppression of Telnaes’ work to Bezos, one can’t help but note the general timing of it all.
