Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Jeff Bezos Positioning Washington Post (and Interests) to Mitigate Financial Exposure to President Trump


It’s a Game of Thrones thing, and multiple interests have contacted me for questions following the Washington Post non-endorsement of Kamala Harris.  I’ll explain in detail, but first the latest development in the moves.  Always remember, there are trillions at stake.

NEW YORK – Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has reportedly given the newspaper a mandate to add more conservative voices to its opinion section — even as he remains silent over the broadsheet’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

Bezos — the world’s second richest person with a fortune that Bloomberg Billionaires Index valued at $211 billion as of Monday — is keen on gaining a more ideologically diverse readership by expanding his newspaper’s reach among right-leaning audiences, according to a report in The New York Times.

The Amazon founder, meanwhile, has remained silent over the non-endorsement controversy. He has not spoken publicly amid protests from high-level staffers and prominent figures such as Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. (read more)

The framework, the inside baseball political stuff, is never truly explained by media.  They play this pretending game that we are not bound to follow.  So, I’ll outline exactly what is happening and the motives for all these recent moves.

You will remember last year when I dug deep into the financial system around Twitter, Elon Musk’s purchase, and the viability of the business model.  In short, by the time he reached October/November ’23 there was going to be no way for Musk to continue operating Twitter without some serious change in financial construct.

So, what happened?

Larry Ellison happened.

In a little-known background conversation that President Trump is well aware of, Oracle founder Larry Ellison said, “I will not allow Musk to fall.”  Thus, an immediate and opportune alignment began that shows the strategic thinking of billionaire Larry Ellison.

Ellison gains around $50 billion per year from his operations.  Oracle is huge. The X-platform subsequently began big contracts with Oracle.   Twitter’s fate is now intrinsically linked to Ellison. Nuf said.

With that scale of GFY money now steadfast backing him, Elon Musk not only had breathing room, but he also had the ability to take big risks.

After testing the water with DeSantis, likely stirred by Ellison taking a peek, it became obvious the best play was to fully support Trump.  Week after week, as President Trump solidly gained position for next week’s election, Elon Musk leaned in further and deeper.  Elon Musk is now the biggest influence operation in the 2024 MAGA movement.

As a direct consequence of Musk’s position, Larry Ellison -by extension Oracle- is now easily positioned to be the biggest beneficiary of a Trump win.  Ellison is the biggest influence operation; but as all influence and leverage operations go, he’s also the quietest influence.

Larry Ellison (Oracle) is the hand on the Elon Musk Marionette.  All Musk moves are with this background alignment as the underpinning.

With a Trump victory next week becoming more and more predictable, the biggest loser was set to be Larry Ellison’s billionaire competitor, Jeff Bezos (Amazon).

Jeff Bezos needs to position himself to avoid being totally shut out from White House influence ability.  The non-endorsement was the first move.  The shift in ideological alignment within the Washington Post (article above) is the second move.  Bezos is mitigating and strategizing risk.  That’s what is going on.

These are not media outlets in your traditional frame of reference. These are influence operations aligned with the interests of the billionaires behind them. It’s a game of thrones thing. Each interest has their own advocacy group. That’s what you would call “modern media”. Bezos has the Washington Post, Ellison positioned himself with Twitter; the intent is the same.

The biggest winners from the Trump victory will be Larry Ellison (Oracle), his super influence operator Elon Musk, and their smaller -albeit ideologically similar- friend, Peter Thiel (Palantir).

This is the inside baseball stuff that circles the President Trump campaign orbit in very close proximity. This is the command-and-control influence operation that determines outcomes. When Trump wins, these interests are positioned for strongest influence.

If you want to really understand what is happening, follow this background context as the intellectual filter and you will be watching President Trump Term-2 politics with clear eyes.  However, always remember, these are their personal interests.  As long as they align with MAGA, all is cool.  If their personal interests diverge from MAGA, we will have a problem.

There are trillions at stake.