JUST IN: Jeff Bezos tells Washington Post staffers opinion page priorities are now 'personal liberties and free markets'

Washington Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sent an email to staffers at the long-standing DC-based outlet on Wednesday morning, letting them know about a "change coming" to the opinion pages. He shared the "note" on X.

Bezos said that the outlet would, from now on, "be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets." He assured staffers and columnists that the paper would cover "other topics too," but that "viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."

"There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job," Bezos went on.

"I am of America and for America, and proud to be so," he continued. "Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity."

Bezos announced that the current opinion editor, David Shipley, had declined to sign on to this mission and decided to leave the paper. "This," Bezos said, "is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment." The paper is now looking for a new Opinion Editor who can lead that new direction.
 
"I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America," Bezos said in conclusion. "I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void."

Bezos famously refused to allow his newspaper to endorse Kamala Harris for president in the recent election. Outlet staff were infuriated by this and the paper saw some high profile resignations, with some claiming the candidacy of Donald Trump, now president, was a "real threat of autocracy."

"In a moment like this, everyone needs to make their own decisions. The Washington Post’s decision to withhold an endorsement that had been written & approved in an election where core democratic principles are at stake was a terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976," said NPR's Michele Norris at the time, per the Daily Caller. 

The decision to decline to endorse Harris also led to an immediate 200,000 drop in subscriptions, which was about 8% of the paper's 2.5 million subscribers to both print and digital.

Bezos attended Trump's inauguration in Washington, DC on January 20 and is one of many tech billionaires who have, of late, changed their tune on Trump. This includes, most notably, Elon Musk, who has taken up residence in DC to aid the Department of Government Efficiency in cutting government waste. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has also been part of that cadre of what some call "broligarchs" who have come around to Trump's vision for a prosperous America, as has Marc Andreessen.