People are praising The Washington Post’s social media team after they uploaded a TikTok video calling out the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, for choosing not to endorse any candidate for president.
For context, Bezos and The Washington Post have been at the center of much scrutiny this week, after it was revealed that one of the world’s richest men — who took ownership of the newspaper in 2013 — personally intervened to stop the paper endorsing Kamala Harris.
Among other details, it was reported that Post staff had already drafted an endorsement of the Democratic candidate before Bezos told them to scrap it, and that journalists were “shocked” and held “uniformly negative” views of his decision. In protest, some 250,000 (and counting) readers cancelled their subscriptions.
Now, The Post’s official TikTok account has taken to the platform to address the controversy, while explaining how Bezos’ billionaire status, and desire to maintain healthy business relationships with both candidates, may have driven his decision.
In the video, The Post staffer plays the role of both a journalist at the paper and Bezos himself, and engages in a discussion about how the billionaire, who has business dealings at the federal level, might be “worried about retribution” if Donald Trump is elected.
The video explains how Bezos’ fear of ruining his federal business dealings — mostly involving his spaceship company Blue Origin and its contracts with NASA — might have been informed by Trump’s previous statements about Bezos’ peers. The former president has threatened fellow billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg in the past, which may have spurred Bezos to soften on Trump if he wins the election.
In the accompanying TikTok caption, The Post explains that Bezos’ non-endorsement approach is being “hailed” by Trump allies as a “sign of neutrality” and a “peace offering,” allowing billionaires to maintain a copacetic relationship with the White House and preserve their future federal dealings.
The caption also quotes a source from the Trump campaign who claims that multiple billionaires and businesspeople have softened their approach to the GOP candidate because they believe he’s heading to the White House again. “A lot of billionaires have been to fancy parties where Trump happens to be, to stay in his orbit,” the video explains.
Interestingly, the video mentions the Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon’s presidency, which The Post played a major role in uncovering. So major, in fact, that that paper became heralded as a shining gold standard of journalism, and subsequently increased its political coverage by endorsing presidential candidates from then on.
Bezos ordering the first non-endorsement since Watergate flies in the face of the very principles that The Post is built upon, and that sentiment was shared by many TikTok users. “US oligarchs are falling in line,” one person commented about Bezos, with another declaring that Bezos “needs to divest from The Post if he’s going to meddle in the press.”
The broader reaction to the video has been surprise, since The Post’s TikTok team seems so willing to call out their boss. “Washington Post social media calling out Washington Post editorial was not on my election bingo card,” one user wrote.
Others added that it is “fascinating that THIS was allowed” but not The Post’s endorsement in the paper, or applauded the social media team for being “very transparent in all of their coverage who the endorsement was for.” It remains to be seen how The Post’s non-endorsement will affect the presidential race, but with just a few short days until the election, we will soon find out.