According to anonymous insiders, Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, is considering selling the Washington Post and reinvesting the money in the Washington Commanders football team. This comes following the news in December that the Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, warned employees that layoffs could be imminent.
But, despite the possibility, Bezos reportedly sat with some of the Post employees and told them he did not have any intention of selling the newspaper, according to the New York Post.
Many people do not believe Bezos’s claim that he's not planning to sell the newspaper, and one potential buyer has apparently said that plans are in the works to make such arrangements in case the sale is announced publicly. Additionally, billionaire and one-time New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has shared his plans to purchase either the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post.
One of the issues with such a deal is Commander owner Dan Snyder's apparent disdain for the Washington Post. Snyder has accused the Post of deliberately targeting him and granting the numerous criticisms of his conduct plenty of ink.
However, should Bezos unload the newspaper first, it could change the game. In fact, one source suggested that should Bezos sell the paper, it could “go a long way” in making Snyder more receptive to the idea of selling his team to the billionaire Amazon owner.
To top it all off, the Bank of America, which Snyder hired to help him sell the team, is actively soliciting Bezos, despite the fact that Snyder is hesitant to sell his team to the owner of the Washington Post.
In November, news channels claimed that actor Matthew McConaughey was working with Bezos and rapper Jay Z to mount a bid to purchase the Commanders. However, Bezos is not one of the parties reported to be making proposals to Snyder to purchase the Commanders.
The official position is that the Post is not available for sale.
However, Bezos has also been transparent about the fact that being a journalist is not his style and that the only reason he bought the newspaper in 2013 was that the Post‘s former owner, Donald Graham, asked him to keep the paper from going under.
“I know that when I'm 90, it's going to be one of the things I'm most proud of, that I took on the Washington Post and helped it through a very rough transition,” Bezos stated in the 2021 book Invent and Wander.
Therefore, the possibility of him selling the newspaper doesn't seem to be completely off the table.
