"The four oligarchs will be paraded like prized ponies before the American people: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman. Together, those odd, insecure, and hollow men control Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon/Prime, and ChatGPT.

But those oligarchs are not mere fascinators on the cap of the Inauguration: They own Trump."

#Trump #Republicans #oligarchy #EconomicElites #SuperRich #Musk #Bezos #Zuckerberg
/6

"Four of the world’s richest men will sit on the dais next to Trump's motley cabinet nominees. See Reuters, Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg to attend Trump's inauguration. ('The chief executives of Tesla, Amazon and Meta will be featured prominently at Trump's swearing-in, sitting with the Republican's Cabinet nominees and other elected officials.')"

~ Robert B. Hubbell

#Trump #Republicans #oligarchy #EconomicElites #SuperRich #Musk #Bezos #Zuckerberg
/5

https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/joe-bidens-parting-gift

"Giving those seats to billionaires signals loudly that this is a new era of oligarchy, without even an attempt to feign allegiance to pre-Trump notions of government for and by the people."

#Trump #Republicans #oligarchy #EconomicElites #SuperRich #Musk #Bezos #Zuckerberg
/4

"On Tuesday, NBC News reported that tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg will all have prominent seats on the platform at Trump's inauguration. The symbolism is unmistakable. Those seats are usually reserved for family members, former presidents, and prominent politicians."

~ Amanda Marcotte

#Trump #Republicans #oligarchy #EconomicElites #SuperRich #Musk #Bezos #Zuckerberg
/3

https://www.salon.com/2025/01/16/tech-billionaires-expose-magas-populism-con-job/

“'Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling [or] disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit…. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.”

#Trump #Republicans #oligarchy #EconomicElites #SuperRich #Musk #Bezos #Zuckerberg #Biden
/2

“Today an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

~ President Biden quoted by Heather Cox Richardson

#Trump #Republicans #oligarchy #EconomicElites #SuperRich #Musk #Bezos #Zuckerberg #Biden
/1

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-15-2025

“We are deeply alarmed by recent #leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of #transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent,… This is about retaining our competitive edge, restoring trust that has been lost, and re-establishing a relationship with leadership based on open #communication,”

“The Post lost 250,000 #subscribers, or 10% of its #subscription base, following its decision not to endorse. This reportedly was a massive contributor to the paper losing a whopping $100m in 2024,”

#TechWeenie / #Bezos/ #WaPo / #journalism <https://theguardian.com/media/2025/jan/15/washington-post-jeff-bezos>

Caught it in one. Don't buy from Amaxon, don't buy from Terrorists, ultimately they both want to control you

#Amazon #Control #Terrorsm #Bezos

Sucking up to a narcisist who would rather see you dead anyway maybe wasn't such a smart business strategy, eh? #USPol #Media #Publishing #Journalism #Bezos #WaPo #WashingtonPost #Amazon https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jan/06/washington-post-layoffs

"De verantwoordelijke eindredacteur van de krant laat aan persbureau AP weten dat hij het niet eens is met de "interpretatie" die Telnaes van de gang van zaken geeft.

De reden waarom de tekening geweigerd werd, is volgens hem dat de krant net een column over hetzelfde onderwerp had gepubliceerd en op het punt stond nog zo'n column te publiceren."

Dat gelooft geen hond.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2550652-cartoonist-washington-post-stapt-op-na-afwijzen-spotprent-over-bezos
#StandWithAnn #AnnTelnaes
#WaPo #Bezos #cartoons #freepress #media

NPR: A Pulitzer winner quits 'Washington Post' after a cartoon on Bezos is killed

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Washington Post has resigned after its editorial page editor rejected a cartoon she created to mock media and tech titans abasing themselves before President-elect Donald Trump."

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/04/nx-s1-5248299/cartoonist-quits-wapo-over-bezos-trump-cartoon-washingtonpost #cartoons #bezos

“I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.”

By Ann Telnaes

#WashingtonPost #Bezos #pressfreedom #press #democracy

https://open.substack.com/pub/anntelnaes/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Just canceled my #WashingtonPost subscription.

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

#WaPo #Bezos #Journalism

#infographics show #Western #american #oligarchy is #money for #Musk #Bezos #Ellison #Zuckerberg #Page #Brin #Ballmer #Huang #Gates #Dell #Walton #Buffet #Bloomberg #Koch etc. #oligarchs and #poverty for #workers

Elon Musk Calls Jeff Bezos' Ex-Wife MacKenzie Scott's $19 Billion Charitable Donations 'Concerning'

#Musk #bezos #MacKenzie #charity

The Daily Mail cited anonymous sources to report that Jeff #Bezos is spending $600mil on his wedding and for some reason people believe that's true.

It's weird. Hope nobody stresses out about their dog giving them cancer.
#media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

While Mackenzie Scott donated $2B this year to nonprofits, @JeffBezos reportedly plans to spend a staggering $600 million on his wedding this week at Dunbar Ranch in Aspen. With an est. 180 guests expected in attendance, the cost PER GUEST comes to ~$3.3 MILLION. 💒 #bezos #press

I don’t like to post stories from the Quisling publication called the Guardian, but this is worth reading:

“Trump has been explicit about revenge’: Asif Kapadia on his new film about the threat to democracy”

by Carole Cadwalladr

“Techno-authoritarianism is here. That’s the message of the film: that [..] there’s a terrifying & all too believable roadmap for Trump that is clearly laid out in 2073.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/dec/15/asif-kapadia-2073-amy-winehouse-senna-maradona-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#Press #UK #Kapadia #2073 #Film #Trump #Musk #Thiel #Zuckerberg #Bezos

Bezos says he is ‘very optimistic’ about Trump’s plan to roll back regulations

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/05/jeff-bezos-trump-regulations-tech

I am sure he is - he will get even more leeway to feck the workers than he got from the Democrats (already digraceful by any meaure of a civilised society).

#Bezos #Amazon #Exploitation #onePerCent

"The paper owned by defense contractor Jeff Bezos chose to publish seven mostly worthless posts on Hunter Biden's pardon and not one on allegations that aspiring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth couldn't even manage two medium non-profits without financially ruining them."

~ Marcy Wheeler

#WashingtonPost #Bezos #Trump #Hegseth #Biden #pardon
/1

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/12/03/how-jeff-bezos-smothered-pete-hegseth-news-because-hunter-biden-was-pardoned-of-already-declined-charges/

"The Washington Post is probably not going anywhere and on some level we need large journalistic institutions to continue to exist. But even well-run large outlets are surely full of waste and bloat that are funded on the backs of and at the expense of the actual journalism. The “wealth and business interests” of billionaire owners, as Bezos writes, are not a “bulwark against intimidation” for journalism. They are, themselves, the biggest threat.

404 Media is barely a year old and we employ four people. You cannot compare our business or what we have done to the Washington Post. As our friend Molly White explained last week, “Just Go Independent” sounds good in theory, but it is not necessarily easy. Doing high quality, investigative journalism is hard, and it is expensive. But it’s not that expensive, and the infrastructure to do it on the internet is getting cheaper and easier to pull off. Printing presses, middle managers, fancy offices, and executive salaries are the expensive things, and they are unnecessary.

Still, it’s unclear whether “Just Go Independent” is a sustainable career path for the number of journalists who we need to have a functioning society. But I do know that relying on the passing interest of billionaires to keep journalism alive is not sustainable. And I know that 250,000 subscribers could fund a lot of independent journalists."

https://www.404media.co/the-billionaire-is-the-threat-not-the-solution/

#WashingtonPost #Bezos #Journalism #Media #News #Billionaires