{"id":15460,"date":"2024-10-27T17:11:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-27T18:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=15460"},"modified":"2024-10-27T18:24:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T18:24:31","slug":"bezos-was-expected-to-make-a-splash-in-washington-but-he-never-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=15460","title":{"rendered":"Bezos Was Expected to Make a Splash in Washington. But He Never Arrived."},"content":{"rendered":"
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The billionaire made splashy purchases of The Washington Post and a mansion in Washington. But his status as a power player in the nation\u2019s capital was never realized.<\/p>\n

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A decade ago, Jeff Bezos was expected to make a splash in Washington.<\/p>\n

In 2013, the Amazon founder bought The Washington Post for $250 million. Three years later, he became the owner of the city\u2019s largest home, spending $23 million for two combined mansions fit to host lavish events for the capital\u2019s elite. His status as Amazon\u2019s originator and as an innovator with the rocket company Blue Origin was expected to help make him influential inside the Beltway.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Bezos, 60, never really arrived.<\/p>\n

In the intervening years, he stepped down from Amazon as chief executive and became a topic of tabloid fodder<\/a> as he divorced his wife<\/a> and went public with his relationship with Lauren S\u00e1nchez, now his fianc\u00e9e<\/a>. Mr. Bezos visited the nation\u2019s capital only on occasion \u2014 primarily for glitzy events or company emergencies. He bought a $165 million Beverly Hills compound<\/a> in 2020, setting a California record at the time, and finished building a 400-foot-long mega-yacht<\/a> last year to sail the world. He has since moved to Miami<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tech billionaire who is instead making waves in Washington is Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, 53, who leads SpaceX, Tesla and X, has increasingly been drawn to the city because of interest in artificial intelligence<\/a> and his rocket company, SpaceX, which partners with NASA and competes with Mr. Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin. Tesla and SpaceX were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies, according to a New York Times analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jeff Bezos with his fianc\u00e9e, Lauren S\u00e1nchez, a former Los Angeles TV anchor.<\/span>Brendan Mcdermid\/Reuters<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Friday, Mr. Bezos made it clear that he was declining to get involved in Washington\u2019s riptides. The Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate<\/a> this year, breaking from a four-decade practice. It has become increasingly complicated for many titans of industry to navigate the political climate, particularly if their companies have federal contracts or provide other services to the government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cEven as a C.E.O. of Amazon with a huge amount of regulatory issues, he was rarely seen in town,\u201d Hilary Rosen, a Democratic political strategist and former Washington editor for The Huffington Post, said of Mr. Bezos. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he ever intended to be a business or media industry leader in D.C., but he certainly hasn\u2019t become one.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The billionaire made splashy purchases of The Washington Post and a mansion in Washington. But his status as a power player in the nation\u2019s capital was never realized.A decade ago, Jeff Bezos was expected to make a splash in Washington.In 2013, the Amazon founder bought The Washington Post for $250 million. Three years later, he became the owner of the city\u2019s largest home, spending $23 million for two combined mansions fit to host lavish events for the capital\u2019s elite. His status as Amazon\u2019s originator and as an innovator with the rocket company Blue Origin was expected to help make him influential inside the Beltway.But Mr. Bezos, 60, never really arrived.In the intervening years, he stepped down from Amazon as chief executive and became a topic of tabloid fodder as he divorced his wife and went public with his relationship with Lauren S\u00e1nchez, now his fianc\u00e9e. Mr. Bezos visited the nation\u2019s capital only on occasion \u2014 primarily for glitzy events or company emergencies. He bought a $165 million Beverly Hills compound in 2020, setting a California record at the time, and finished building a 400-foot-long mega-yacht last year to sail the world. He has since moved to Miami.The tech billionaire who is instead making waves in Washington is Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, 53, who leads SpaceX, Tesla and X, has increasingly been drawn to the city because of interest in artificial intelligence and his rocket company, SpaceX, which partners with NASA and competes with Mr. Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin. Tesla and SpaceX were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies, according to a New York Times analysis.Jeff Bezos with his fianc\u00e9e, Lauren S\u00e1nchez, a former Los Angeles TV anchor.Brendan Mcdermid\/ReutersOn Friday, Mr. Bezos made it clear that he was declining to get involved in Washington\u2019s riptides. The Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate this year, breaking from a four-decade practice. It has become increasingly complicated for many titans of industry to navigate the political climate, particularly if their companies have federal contracts or provide other services to the government.\u201cEven as a C.E.O. of Amazon with a huge amount of regulatory issues, he was rarely seen in town,\u201d Hilary Rosen, a Democratic political strategist and former Washington editor for The Huffington Post, said of Mr. Bezos. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he ever intended to be a business or media industry leader in D.C., but he certainly hasn\u2019t become one.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15462,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15463,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15460\/revisions\/15463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}