Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tried to get President Donald Trump to pick a different Vice President instead of JD Vance before the pair publicly patched up their frosty relationship, according to Axios.
Bezos, who has recently joined the MAGA bandwagon after years of butting heads with Trump, reportedly had a phone call with him way back in July last year. During the chat, he apparently bigged up former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.
Burgum, who sold his software company to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion, eventually fell into his current position of Secretary of the Interior instead of joining the Republican ticket.
Axios senior political reporter Alex Isenstadt writes in his upcoming book “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power” that Bezos urged Trump to pick Burgum for VP, saying that he’d be an “excellent” choice, according to two anonymous sources with knowledge of the chat.
Bezos reportedly started the call with a paean to Trump’s resilience in dealing with an attempt on his life after he was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
Burgum reportedly organized for Bezos to wingman for him by telling Trump that the Amazon founder wanted to speak with him. He then gave Bezos' contact info to Trump aides so that they’d recognize his eventual advances.
In an online piece for Axios, Isenstadt wrote that Bezos' “overture” was “a shift in their once-chilly relationship.”
Despite his suggestion not taking shape, Bezos and Trump eventually publicly mended their relationship months later. The dramatic decision for the Washington Post owner to pull the paper’s Kamala Harris endorsement in October marked a real turning point.
Bezos went on to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, which secured him a seat at the ceremony. The pair have also dined together at Mar-a-Lago.
Bezos also publicly praised the president for an “extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” a day after he was elected on Nov. 5.
This week, he announced that his MAGA transformation was complete by ending decades of political balance in the opinion pages of the Washington Post.
The White House and Bezos representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
