Jeff Bezos Expresses Optimism About Trump’s Deregulation Agenda, Offers

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The CEO praised President-elect Trump’s deregulatory agenda, expressing optimism and hinting at collaboration with Elon Musk’s efficiency efforts.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos expressed optimism about President-elect Donald Trump’s second term on Wednesday, voicing enthusiasm for potential regulatory rollbacks in the years ahead, even offering to personally help with the deregulatory effort like his business arch-rival Elon Musk.

Speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York on Dec. 4, Bezos said that there are “too many regulations in this country” and praised Trump’s commitment to slashing red tape.

“I’m actually very optimistic this time around,” Bezos said. “He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I’m going to help him.”

Bezos said that, in his view, the United States is “so set up to grow” thanks to factors like abundant energy resources and the world’s best risk-capital system, and that eliminating barriers to growth is key to solving the nation’s most vexing economic problems, such as ballooning public debt.

“You’re going to solve the problem of the national debt by making it a smaller percentage of GDP,” he said. “That means you have to grow the GDP at three, four, five percent a year, and let the national debt grow slower than that. If you can do that, then this is a very manageable problem.”

The billionaire entrepreneur added that America’s many advantages are being undermined by burdensome regulations.

“I’m very optimistic that President Trump is serious about this regulatory agenda, and I think he has a very good chance at succeeding,” he said.

Bezos’ comments come weeks after his decision in October to bar The Washington Post, which he owns, from endorsing a presidential candidate. The move sparked backlash, with tens of thousands of readers canceling subscriptions and protests from veteran journalists at the paper. In an op-ed, Bezos defended the decision, arguing that endorsements contribute to perceptions of bias in an era of widespread mistrust in the media and have little impact on election outcomes.

During his interview at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, Bezos also addressed Trump’s contentious relationship with the press, saying he would work to dissuade the president-elect from seeing the media as an adversary.

“I don’t think the press is the enemy,” Bezos said, adding that he believes Trump’s relationship with the media has become less adversarial in recent years as he has grown as a person, and is “calmer … more confident, more settled.”

During his first term, Trump frequently criticized Bezos, Amazon, and The Washington Post. In 2019, Amazon alleged in court that Trump’s animosity cost the company a $10 billion Pentagon contract, which the Biden administration later split between Amazon and Microsoft.

Later in the interview, Bezos also commented on Musk’s regulatory role in the upcoming administration, expressing confidence that Musk would not use his influence to harm competitors. Bezos’s space venture, Blue Origin, is a rival to Musk’s SpaceX.

Musk co-leads the to-be-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Trump has tasked with leading the effort to cut government expenditures and roll back bureaucracy. In an op-ed, Musk and his DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy called for a “lean team of small-government crusaders” to join them, seeking volunteers who would work long hours without pay on cutting regulations, downsizing the federal workforce, and reducing the federal budget.

Bezos hinted Wednesday that he might like to lend them a hand.