Three years after Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250 million, the Amazon billionaire made another Washington acquisition that was arguably just as important to Georgetown’s social life: a mansion in the capital’s posh Kalorama Heights neighborhood for 23 million dollars.
His 2016 purchase of a former textile museum that would become the city’s largest private residence was celebrated locally as a sign that the tech titan and his then-wife MacKenzie were shifting their lives from Seattle — where the couple had a love-hate relationship with city luminaries . – to “the other Washington”.
Bezos did little to discourage speculation. Just as he began a $12 million renovation of the home in 2018, Amazon announced it was building a second headquarters in the Washington suburb of Crystal City. Then it became known that he wanted to take over the city’s legendary National Football League team, which would soon change its name from the Redskins to the Commanders.
The capital embraced her new arrival. “What he’s going to do is revive the legacy of Kay Graham and her great social connections,” Jean Case, a Bezos friend and wife of AOL co-founder Steve Case, predicted that year in a reference to the late, legendary Post- owner and Georgetown. hostess.
When Bezos threw his first major party at the Kalorama property in January 2020, guests included Mitt Romney and Ivanka Trump, and the Post, which saw digital subscriptions and headcount surges, seemed like a rare growth story in the news industry. Soon after, the owner also began setting up his $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund philanthropy organization in Washington.
But over the past 18 months, several of Bezos’ big bets on Washington have been derailed, stalled or overtaken by events — culminating in the turmoil at the Post, where the billionaire’s hand-picked chief executive, Sir Will Lewis, is facing an uprising in the newsroom, caused by his radical efforts to stem losses at the news organization, which amounted to $77 million last year.
Robert Winnett, the British former colleague who selected Lewis as editor, stepped down from his post last week after stories appeared in rival media outlets and the Post itself questioned the ethics of both men in previous roles.
The series of setbacks has raised questions in the nation’s capital: Is Bezos still as enamored with Washington — and the Post — as he was when he took over the troubled newspaper a decade ago?
People who have spoken to Bezos insist he is still committed to the Post for the long haul, a sentiment he reiterated last week in a memo to top editors in which he said he would “lead this great institution into the future.” .
“In my experience, Jeff is a tough guy and I don’t think he really cares what people think,” says someone who has worked closely with him in the past. “Will he tolerate losing $100 million every year? Absolutely not. Is he willing to give Will the chance to execute his strategy? I am confident he will do so, barring any new negative revelations.”
Yet a review of Bezos’ recent activities tells a slightly different story about the priorities of the tech billionaire and his new partner, TV personality Lauren Sánchez, as other hubs compete with Washington for their business and social pursuits.
JetSpy’s flight logs for three private jets linked to Bezos do not reflect all of the couple’s recent trips to Washington, where they hosted an awards ceremony in March and attended a state dinner at the White House in April. But they suggest the city has ranked below Seattle, California, Florida and Texas on their list of destinations since early 2021.
When the Post celebrated its three Pulitzer Prizes in May, the couple attended the glittering Met Gala in Manhattan. Bezos arrived there after a similarly celebrity-heavy Formula 1 Grand Prix party in Miami. And when last week’s leadership crisis roiled the Post, they were photographed on holiday in Mykonos.
Days after Lewis shocked Post journalists this month by announcing the resignation of editor Sally Buzbee, Bezos paid $87 million for a third waterfront property in Miami, a 10,000-square-foot mansion on two acres with seven bedrooms, a pool and a jetty.
His move to South Florida followed an announcement by Amazon last year that it was halting construction of its headquarters in Crystal City. Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s vice president of global economic development, emphasized that “our long-term commitment remains unchanged” but acknowledged there was no update on when construction would resume.
Amazon had promised to create 25,000 jobs at the site, which is next to Washington’s Reagan National Airport and across the Potomac River from the capital’s monuments and museums.
But recent data from Virginia’s State Development Authority shows that the number of Amazon employees in the region has actually fallen to 7,791 from 8,430 last year. The Post was first to report the drop. Amazon, which like other major tech groups is grappling with how much office space it will need after the pandemic, told the Financial Times that about 8,000 employees had been assigned to the site of its second headquarters and that more than 1,000 positions were open.
Of all Bezos’s thwarted Washington initiatives, however, the one that may hit closest to home is his failed pursuit of the Commanders. Bezos, a lifelong NFL fan, had repeatedly expressed his desire to join the elite club of football team owners.
Bezos went so far as to form an ownership group with music mogul Jay-Z to acquire the Commanders, but was outbid by fellow billionaire Josh Harris, co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo.
At the time, some US media outlets reported that the team’s then-owner, Dan Snyder, blocked Bezos’ bid over his ownership of the Post – which almost single-handedly forced Snyder to sell after it emerged that the team allegedly suffered pervasive sexual harassment and sexual tolerated intimidation. abuse by employees.
However, people briefed on the process insist that Bezos was simply outbid by Harris, who bought the team for $6 billion. “I don’t think Snyder would have sold to them if Jeff came in with a $7 billion offer,” said a person involved in the process.
There are few signs that Bezos is souring on the Post, the original pillar of his Washington empire, or Lewis, the leader he chose to transform it.
When the group began looking for a new CEO and publisher last year, Bezos relied heavily on longtime friend and Amazon board member Patty Stonesifer, who served as the Post’s interim chief, to sort through the candidates. The Post hired the Sucherman consulting firm to help with the process and conducted a “thorough background check” on Lewis and his past, according to people briefed on the matter. But Bezos himself is said to have made the final decision to hire Lewis during a meal with the British media executive.
People familiar with the matter say Bezos and Lewis have had a good relationship — at least so far — and that Bezos has endorsed Lewis’ turnaround plan for the Post, which has lost nearly half its audience since 2020.
Bezos had followed the steps Lewis had taken so far, according to a person familiar with their relationship, who said the Amazon founder approved his new CEO’s decisions before they were announced. This included the plan for a “three newsroom” structure, she added, which led to Buzbee’s departure.
But Bezos has been dispassionate in parting with executives with whom he has cooled in the past. When he decided to fire Katharine Weymouth as publisher of the Post in 2014, he acted quickly. Less than a year after buying the paper, he ousted the Graham family heiress who had controlled the paper for 80 decades in a single meeting that lasted less than five minutes.
“I was struck by the abrupt and icy dismissal,” wrote Martin Baron, then editor-in-chief, in a recent book. Weymouth later said: “I expected to at least finish this year”.
Additional reporting by Daniel Thomas and James Fontanella-Khan