Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has reportedly found a fresh way to boost the Trump family coffers after giving Melania Trump a multimillion-dollar windfall.
The MAGA-friendly streamer funded the Melania documentary to the tune of $75 million. The film earned just $16 million at the box office before being shunted to the small screen.
The first lady reportedly took 70 percent of the $40 million Amazon paid for the rights to the vanity documentary. Another $35 million went on marketing the film.
Now, The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is discussing a reboot of The Apprentice, the reality TV show that made Donald Trump a household name and helped propel him to the presidency.
The Apprentice ran in various formats on NBC from 2004 to 2017, including a celebrity spin-off. NBC fired Trump from his hosting role on the franchise after 14 seasons in August 2015 following comments he made about Mexican immigrants after announcing that he was running for president.
Executives at Amazon have discussed casting the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., as a possible host for the reboot, according to the Journal, although the network has yet to approach the Trump family.
Don Jr, 48, was a regular fixture on The Apprentice, appearing as a guest adviser and judge from 2006 to 2015. His sister Ivanka, 44, also appeared on the regular and celebrity versions of the reality show.
Amazon acquired the rights to The Apprentice as part of its $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, which closed in March 2022. MGM owned Mark Burnett’s production company, which produced The Apprentice. Amazon Prime started streaming original episodes of the reality show last year.
A copy of the president’s financial disclosures, viewed by The Hollywood Reporter, showed Trump still earns six-figure royalties from The Apprentice airing on streaming and in syndication.
The publication said the 2024 royalties were between $100,000 and $1,000,000.
The rumored reboot would appear on Amazon Prime, according to the WSJ, which reports that Amazon MGM Studios head Mike Hopkins began discussing the concept with other executives around the time Trump was sworn in for his second term last year.
“Since our acquisition of MGM, we have had preliminary internal discussions about what’s next for The Apprentice as a property,” an Amazon spokesman told the publication, although the show is not in active development and no host has been chosen.
The Daily Beast has contacted Amazon, the White House, and representatives for the Trump family for comment.
The president’s eldest son now hosts a podcast called Triggered With Don Jr.
Amazon founder Bezos is close to the Trump camp, with the billionaire invited to this week’s VIP state dinner for King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House.
When asked whether he believed Bezos spending $75 million on the documentary was “an act of corporate corruption,” Trump said, “I don’t know, I was not involved, that was done with my wife... I think it’s a really important movie.”
Bezos discussed his involvement with the Trump family via the Melania documentary in March, when he met with staff from his newspaper The Washington Post.
“One staffer asked Bezos pointedly whether Amazon’s involvement with Melania Trump’s documentary was an effort to curry favor with the Trump administration,” Status reported. “Bezos denied that assertion, growing defensive and insisting that it was a ‘hands-off’ deal that he wasn’t involved in personally.”
He stated that the documentary had yet to make a profit at that point.
Before the film’s premiere, it emerged taht two-thirds of the documentary’s New York crew members requested their names be removed from the credits. Some crew members, many of whom were told by Amazon that they could not opt out of making the film for the risk of losing their jobs, even hoped it would flop.
“Unfortunately, if it does flop, I would really feel great about it,” an anonymous crew member told Rolling Stone.
“I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this,” another added.
