The White House returned fire and Jeff Bezos took another swing Monday in a back-and-forth dispute between the Amazon founder and President Joe Biden.
Bezos took his first shot at the president on Twitter on Friday, reacting to a tweet from Biden about inflation in which the president, without naming Amazon, said “let’s make sure the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.”
On Sunday, Bezos kept going, retweeting the account @ne0liberal, which said the Biden administration hasn’t done anything to lower the deficit. Bezos said the administration “tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an already over-heated, inflationary economy and only [Sen. Joe] Manchin saved them from themselves.”
He added that “inflation is a regressive tax that most hurts the least affluent. Misdirection doesn’t help the country.”
On Monday, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded in a statement published by CNBC.
“It doesn’t require a huge leap to figure out why” Bezos, the world’s second-wealthiest man, would oppose Biden’s proposal to hike taxes on the ultra-wealthy and corporations. “It’s also unsurprising that this tweet comes after the president met with labor organizers, including Amazon employees,” Bates said in a statement.
Bates was referring to Biden’s May 5 meeting with Christian Smalls, leader of the Amazon Labor Union, which was victorious last month at a Staten Island, N.Y., Amazon warehouse facility.
Bezos was back at it after that statement, tweeting Monday that the White House wants to “muddy the topic” of his recent tweets.
Bezos might be fired further fired up by comments Biden made in front of union leaders on April 6, after the warehouse workers’ victory against Amazon, in which the president said, “Amazon, here we come” and that the choice to join a union belongs to workers alone.”
Bezos has been especially active on Twitter in the past few days, engaging with followers on Friday and waking up Monday to share an anniversary tweet about Amazon’s IPO 25 years ago.
“What a long, strange trip it’s been,” he said, quoting the Grateful Dead.