We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who had worked at The Washington Post since 2008, resigned Friday after the paper chose not to run a cartoon she drew that showed the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, kneeling in front of President-elect Donald Trump. 

“I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now,” Ms. Telnaes wrote on her Substack blog Open Windows, which included a rough draft of the cartoon. 

The draft of the cartoon also included depictions of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and Mickey Mouse, all kneeling and bowing while offering bags of money to Trump. 

Telnaes also wrote that “my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. …  I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness,’” a reference to a slogan the Post started using in 2017 after Trump’s first inauguration. 

“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump,” she added.

David Shipley, the Post opinion editor who claimed it was his decision, said in a statement that “not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force. My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition,” according to The Washington Times.

Bezos, despite a not so warm relationship with Trump in recent years, has expressed support for Trump following his 2024 election victory, announcing he was “very optimistic” about Trump’s regulatory agenda, according to Fox News. He has even pledged a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, and went to Mar-a-Lago to have dinner with the president-elect. 

In October, turmoil erupted for the Post both inside the newsroom and among subscribers after the paper announced it was no longer going to endorse presidential candidates. 

By Tuesday after the Friday announcement by the Post of no more presidential endorsements, the paper had lost 250,000 subscribers according to its own reporting. That represents about 10% of its digital subscribers.