Jeff Bezos backs DOGE, 'optimistic' about Trump's 2nd term, eager to 'help him' achieve goals

Billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said that he is "optimistic" about the incoming Trump administration, even going so far as backing up his newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will be headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

During Trump's first term, Bezos was not publicly in favor of the now-president-elect and was even seen as antagonistic towards the administration. However, this time around, things appear to be shifting, and he has voiced approval of potential regulatory cuts that Trump has promised, per the Daily Mail.

"I'm actually very optimistic this time around," Bezos said during an interview at the New York Times' DealBook Summit. "[Trump] seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I'm going to help him. We do have too many regulations in this country."

During the interview, he was also asked whether he had concerns about Musk as a competitor in the area of space exploration being close to the Trump White House, as Bezos owns Blue Origin, a competitor to Musk's SpaceX. Bezos said that believes Musk won't use his political power to "disadvantage his competitors," and that he is not worried about Musk's intentions with DOGE, and added that he thinks "it's going to be great."

DOGE, which has been drummed up to take on heavy regulations as well as cut back on government spending, is not a government entity. The organization, headed by Musk and Ramaswamy, will however, provide policy recommendations to the White House as well as members of Congress to push for changes deemed necessary to scale back the reach of the feds.

Cutbacks on regulations could help Bezos as well as many business owners develop further business successes. The Amazon founder, who also owns the Washington Post, an outlet that is widely perceived to have a left-wing bias, also promised to rein it in towards the center earlier this month after vowing that the outlet will not make any more presidential endorsements to avoid bias.

He wrote in an op-ed, “I have a bunch of ideas, and I am working on that right now. We saved The Washington Post once, this will be the second time. It needs to be put back on a good footing again.” Bezos also promised to hire more conservative columnists to the outlet.