In June 2017, in one of those strange turns of life, I found myself at a dinner in a palazzo in Turin, Italy, sitting next to Jeff Bezos. For reasons I could scarcely understand, the deal required laying off 39 journalists and more than 2,000 other employees. The cuts, the paper’s leaders said, were aimed at stemming losses and enticing Bezos to keep investing. In the intervening years, Bezos has apparently decided that his flattery is better aimed at a different audience: Donald Trump. In this new gilded age, maybe we should set aside trust and — as Bezos himself once urged — embrace skepticism.

Source: Washington Post February 17, 2026 19:01 UTC