Jeff Bezos' Blackmail Masterclass

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, was not so much in the limelight until his divorce case began. And now his personal life has become entangled in a controversy extending to President Donald Trump.  

Bezos accused the National Enquirer on 7 February of "engaging in extortion and blackmail”. According Bezos, the tabloid threatened to publish "intimate images" of him if he does not drop his investigation on how the Enquirer acquired his private communications. He posted the emails sent by representatives of the Enquirer demanding Bezos affirm publicly that the tabloid's coverage of issues concerning him are “not influenced by political forces”. And in case he refused, the Enquirer would allegedly make public photos and messages between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, a news anchor.

In fact, Bezos’ feud with the Enquirer began in January 2019. The tabloid devoted 12 of its pages to a story exposing text messages between Bezos and Sanchez; it was just at the time when Bezos announced that he and his wife MacKenzie were getting divorced. 

Gavin de Becker, Bezos’ personal security consultant, has told The Daily Beast that Bezos' investigation was ongoing and there are “strong leads point[ing] to political motives”.

The "political motives" allude to Trump, who tweeted the following on Bezos in January, referring to him as 'Bozo'.

"So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post."

The tabloid’s parent company, American Media Inc., struck an immunity deal in December with federal officials to avoid prosecution for aiding Trump to facilitate payments to women alleging affairs with the then-candidate. 

Wired's podcast is concise debate of the whole saga of Bezos' relationship status "it's complicated". One thing is for sure, as the podcast points out, Bezos did the right thing by going public and exposing extortion.