Jeff Bezos, and other tech leaders, congratulate Trump on ‘extraordinary political comeback’

Gone are the days when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos joked about sending Donald Trump to the moon on a rocket to keep him out of the White House.

Bezos took to X on Wednesday to congratulate Trump on “an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Apple’s Tim Cook issued similar statements following Trump’s second presidential win.

The statements strike a warmer, more optimistic tone than tech leaders took in 2016. Back then, Bezos pledged to keep an open mind after trading jabs with Trump throughout his 2016 campaign.

Despite clashing over issues like the travel ban, the tech industry benefited from some signature Trump policies during his first term, like lowering the corporate tax rate. Investors appear bullish about Big Tech’s prospect under a second term. Amazon, Microsoft, and other tech giants saw their stock prices rise Wednesday following Trump’s victory.

But Ryan Calo, of the University of Washington’s Tech Policy Lab, cautioned, “the benefits of a Trump administration for the tech sector will not be evenly distributed.”

He said that while Trump policies could benefit Big Tech’s bottom line, a crackdown on immigration could make it more difficult to recruit and retain international talent. Amazon had more employees working on H-1B visas than any other company last year.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Bezos faced criticism for appearing to extend an olive branch to the Trump campaign. As owner of The Washington Post, Bezos blocked the newspaper’s editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris, ending the endorsement policy. In an editorial of his own, Bezos called it “a principled decision” to regain the public’s trust, not put a thumb on the scales of the election.

“If you're at the helm of a multibillion-dollar corporation heading into these waters, you're just going to be as careful as possible, I guess,” Calo said. “But make no mistake. These are going to be very, very choppy waters.”

Choppy could describe Amazon’s relationship with Trump during his first term as president. Amazon sued Trump’s defense department, claiming it lost a big government contract because of the president’s personal animus toward the company.

But in the intervening years, Amazon, and the tech industry more broadly, have worked to form more amicable relations with the past and future president.