Amazon stock takes a hit: President Donald Trump is not happy with The Washington Post and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and AMZN stock is taking a hit because of it. Shares dropped 2% today but have pared some of those losses since.
The President of the US has hit out today on Twitter against the two companies which are both owned by CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, claiming that the Washington Post, in particular, has been very unfair to him of late.
Amazon Stock Takes a Hit, What’s Going On?
It seems that there may be somewhat of a “spat” between Trump and Bezos, ever since Trump’s call to have greater taxes imposed on the multi-billion dollar e-retailer back in January. At the start of the year, he stated that the companies market dominance is hurting American retailers and in June, The Supreme Court overturned a 1992 ruling which meant that US states now had the right to collect sales tax from internet sales.
At the time, the decision caused shares across all major e-retailers to drop, however, this decision didn’t actually affect Amazon directly as the company already collected taxes in every state it made sales in.
Perhaps, the comments were enough to bruise an ego though.
Then Trump, on more than one occasion, accused Amazon of an unfair pricing structure with the Postal Service and in April, he signed an executive order which established a task force to look at the operations and finances of the USPS and recommend changes.
Today’s Twitter remarks were as follows:
Anti-Trust
And then there are his hints at antitrust action against Amazon. Trump calls the Washington Post a “lobbyist” for Amazon serving to protect it from antitrust claims “which many [people] feel should be brought?” Trumps administration has been notoriously hard on antitrust matters and he has hinted at Amazon monopolizing the retail space.
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Is Trump Bitter?
But is Trump just hot-headed over bad press? The Washington Post reports on him suggest an unfavorable leaning towards him and his actions. Most notably his recent talks with North Korea, in which the paper claimed that Trump is frustrated with a lack of progress in negotiations and that his talks didn’t yield any results.
Am I wrong in thinking this spat sounds very like a “well, he hit me first” matter more suited to the schoolyard?
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