Bernie Sanders Blasts Jeff Bezos Over Washington Post Layoffs

As a massive trail of heartbroken reactions and confessions from employees laid off from the Washington Post flooded social media, US Senator Bernie Sanders launched a blistering attack on the legendary company’s owner Jeff Bezos. Sanders blatantly called out the billionaire Amazon founder’s hypocrisy over he prioritised allocating resources and funds to certain projects while completely sacrificing others. The American politician’s scathing remarks emerged hot on the heels of the Post’s shocking announcement about sweeping layoffs and elimination of certain popular desks dedicated to sports and foreign coverage. Some award-winning journalists like Lizzie Johnson were forced to accept the life-altering revelation in the middle of a warzone. Caroline O’Donovan, often known as the ‘Amazon reporter’ for the WaPo also revealed she was “laid off from my job covering Amazon for Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post.” Taking to his official X account, the US Senator wrote on Wednesday (US time), “If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don’t tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff.” He added, “Democracy dies in oligarchy.” Even earlier this week, Sanders took a shot at Bezos in another post, where he seemingly labelled the Post owner as one of the faces of modern “authoritarianism.” “When we talk about authoritarianism, it’s not just Donald Trump,” Sanders wrote on February 3. “Musk owns X. Bezos owns Twitch. Zuckerberg owns Instagram and Facebook. Larry Ellison controls TikTok. Billionaires increasingly control what we see, hear and read.” As per Forbes’ real-time billionaires tracker, the Amazon founder is the fourth-richest person in the world. He has an estimated net worth of $244.3 billion. The US Senator’s latest dig at Bezos firstly alludes to the Melania documentary. To buy the rights of this particular project about First Lady Melania Trump, Amazon paid her production company $40 million, about $26 million more than the next closest bidder, Disney, and $35 million to promote it, as per the New York Times. Moving on to the next piece of arsenal Sanders dropped in his latest tweet: the $500 million yacht. As one of the richest men in the world, Bezos reportedly splurged a shockingly unbelievable amount to call what is currently the world’s largest sailing yacht (The Koru), as per Boat International. The superyacht especially made news in the weeks leading up to Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez’s historic wedding, as they were spotted sailing on it around Mallorca, Spain. Their lavish nuptials in Venice in June 2025, on the other hand, landed them as subject one too many headlines branding the union as the “Wedding of the Century.” With the multi-day affair being held at multiple locations around the city, it was reportedly estimated to be a $50 million celebration. Bernie Sanders is not alone in coming down hard on Bezos over the massive Washington Post layoffs. Given all the money-focussed headlines Bezos has been at the centre of over the years, he’s now infamously earned his name as someone The New Yorker says “Brought Down the Washington Post.” Back in September 2013, the Amazon founder had his first meeting with the Washington Post after he agreed to purchase the paper from the Graham family for $250 million a month earlier. At that very meeting, Bezos heralded “a new golden era for the Washington Post,” writes The New Yorker’s Ruth Marcus. Cut to the year 2026, the newspaper he owns left employees anxiously bracing for widespread layoffs weeks before the actual job cuts announcement. And this week, the dreaded news finally dropped as the Post purged about one in three employees across the company Wednesday morning. “Bezos is not trying to save The Washington Post. He’s trying to survive Donald Trump,” former Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler said in a column earlier this week. Meanwhile, Bezos hosted Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Blue Origin rocket company, yet another company the billionaire founded and owns. Ted Hope, who had worked at Amazon from 2015 to 2020, had also questioned the amount of funds allocated for the documentary. “This has to be the most expensive documentary ever made that didn’t involve music licensing,” he said, as per the NYT. “How can it not be equated with currying favor or an outright bribe? How can that not be the case?” Here’s how many other top figures in the US reacted to the big news this week. US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared: “When Jeff Bezos bought WaPo, he immediately took control of the opinions section. Now, he’s laying off hundreds of journalists, including those covering Amazon. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s the result of billionaires with vested political agendas taking over our media.” Jack Mirkinson, editor at The Nation, said : “Always bears repeating that this is not ultimately a financial decision. Jeff Bezos is worth over 250 billion dollars. He can afford to lose many millions and never even notice it. This is, at its core, a political and personal decision by Bezos to destroy the Post.” Michael McFaul, Former United States Ambassador to Russia, wrote on X: “Such as a sad day at @washingtonpost. (I, too, was let go a while back as a monthly columnist.) Bezos has destroyed one of the best newspapers of my lifetime. Americans and the world will understand less about the world now when we need to understand more.” US Senator Elizabeth Warren chimed in: “Jeff Bezos just fired hundreds of reporters at the Washington Post — including the Amazon reporter holding his OWN company accountable. Reminder: Jeff Bezos’ net worth is nearly $250,000,000,000.” American activist Charlotte Clymer wrote: “Jeff Bezos’ wedding last summer cost somewhere around $50M. That, alone, could have saved all 300 positions cut today at The Washington Post for a year. Of course, he wouldn’t have to choose. He could do both because he’s worth $250B, which is nearly the GDP of New Zealand.” Congressman Greg Casar tweeted: “After paying $40M for the Melania movie, Bezos is firing hundreds of Washington Post reporters who tell us actual facts. All while turning the editorial board into a billionaire-defense operation. Too often, the billionaires who control our biggest media outlets are selling out our country.” Despite the criticism, the Post’s Executive Editor Matt Murray maintained that Bezos was committed to making the Post “a bigger, relevant, thriving institution,” as per CNN.