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What is best theory for a trade? Trump gets a not-that-bad signal from a known media enemy and Bezos gets tax cuts?
How did it come to be that the LA Times did something similar? That part is strange. As mentioned, the lack of endorsement is more significant than an endorsement itself. I assume a place like the LA Times is far more doomed than WaPo.
A lot of what he writes suggests it is political. Just not in a quid pro quo way. WaPo benefited from one Trump presidency. It could continue to downsize and remain a bastion of resistance for some years, or maybe it can't and that is why this signal has to be sent. Bezos doesn't want to own the bastion of resistance anymore.
Maybe he is tired.
re: LA Times, though the owner is a Clinton donor, he met with Trump in 2017 and asked for a cabinet position, then was appointed by Paul Ryan to a health policy advisory committee. He's a pharma billionaire who presumably has strong opinions on relevant issues and would like a seat at the table, the LA Times is definitely secondary to that.
Amusingly, he was also an early investor in Zoom. I wonder whether that or his pharma investments paid off better during Covid.
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If the owner's daughter is to be believed, he just genuinely believes that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and doesn't want to help a candidate who won't take action against it.
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The meeting was with Blue Origin executives which is Bezos' space flight company. Presumably WaPo doesn't endorse Harris and maybe Trump steers some NASA contracts Blue Origin's way if he wins. This hearkens back to the JEDI military contract during the Trump administration, which allegedly went to Microsoft over Amazon for political reasons (including alleged interference by Trump).
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"We'd like to work with you in our coming administration, but we can't do that whist you're openly endorsing our opposition. Make that go away and we can talk."
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