Billionaires are in bad odor these days. I say, thank God for billionaires who protect the free press, reinvent business models, do cool stuff in space, and stand up to complete and utter Peckers
HOLY COW. In a medium post, @JeffBezos says that David Pecker and AMI threatened to release embarrassing photos unless Bezos agreed to stop investigating them and released a statement saying he didn’t have anything on them! He included emails in the post.
Jeff Bezos has a blog post about what he says is the National Inquirer trying to shake him down over semi-nude photos they obtained of him. He puts the email from the Inquirer and his response.
3. I mean the fact that David Pecker and AMI were attempting to blackmail the richest man in the world while they are cooperating with the US Attorney on the Trump investigation is something else. I mean....I will truly never get over this post.
The news here is that Bezos has laid out AMI’s “catch-and-kill” tactic in greater and more explicit detail than we’ve seen before.
Luckily for him (and unluckily for AMI), he’s just rich enough to not be scared.
Good for @JeffBezos for going public with the National Enquirer "blackmail" attempt. I don't know if what the Enquirer did is illegal, but it certainly seems slimy and unjournalistic. His Medium article is well worth a read (though it made my laptop blush)
Everyone is entitled to intimate privacy, from the powerful to the powerless. @JeffBezos asks the right question at a truly vulnerable moment: "If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?" medium.com/@jeffreypbezos…@CCRInitiative
2. Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world (who happens to be CEO of the 2nd most valuable company in the world), published an email from a top AMI exec noting that they had Bezos' dick pics and threatening to publish them. I will never get over this. medium.com/@jeffreypbezos…pic.twitter.com/ldUWYqGPDq
This is seriously... unnnnnbelievable.
The Enquirer and its ultra-sleazebag CEO tried to openly extort Jeff Bezos... THE RICHEST MAN ON PLANET EARTH...
Bezos threw their dirt out there himself and just dragged these scumbags out into the light of day.
Remarkable: Jeff Bezos publishes "the precise details” of AMI's "extortionate proposal” to him, including emails from Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard
I realize the internet has no room for nuance, but please find it. Whatever you think of Bezos, the fact that the Nationa Enquirer appears to be blackmailing people to manipulate press coverage is no joke.
Again, I hereby nominate Jeff Bezos for the ``2019 Pulitzer Prize For Public Service.'' His willingness to take on and expose the National Enquirer is an enormously important act of civic journalism. Thank you Jeff.
Bezos says "numerous people have contacted our investigation team about their similar experiences with AMI, and how they needed to capitulate because, for example, their livelihoods were at stake"
One interesting note, Jon Fine, the deputy general counsel for American Media who sent the email to Bezos’s lawyer, himself used to work for Amazon. He gave out the literary grants!
Holy crap! Media mouthpiece for Trump and the Saudi royal family tries to blackmail owner of Washington Post—Jeff Bezos—with stolen sex pics. It ... does not go as planned
This is beyond awesome of Jeff Bezos. If someone blackmails you, esp with nude photos, call their bluff. We should not care about the photos nor seek to view them.
“I asked him to prioritize protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter.”
That’s a nice way of saying, “We are coming for you.”
This is remarkable and disgusting. These people should be in jail. And it's had not to feel a certain admiration for @JeffBezos for refusing to cave to their blackmail.
Jeffrey Bezos wrote a medium post explaining why he refuses to pay David Pecker extortion money in exchange for pictures of Bezos' pecker. I earnestly hope Gawker's fate will be visited upon National Enquirer.
I gotta say-in the context of all the billionaire bashing of late-worth noting there are a # of billionaires trying to do the right thing & in the process putting themselves in very challenging situations of privacy violations, harassment, & worse.
Jeff Bezos is risking having his dick pics posted in order to stand up to the slimiest "news" organization in the country, which coordinated its 2016 coverage with the Trump campaign. Jeff Bezos is a hero.
Been watching, reading celebrations of Jeff Bezos for publishing parts of one side of communications between his team and National Enquirer. But reading Bezos piece, it's hard to figure out what is going on. Need more.
"I asked him to prioritize protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter."
Can you imagine what Bezos' PI's budget is?
Bezos is a clunky writer, but this open letter to the aptly named David Pecker is a delight. The National Enquirer and AMI are an extortion racket. Bezos won’t be extorted.
"If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?" Bezos calls out National Enquirer on attempts to blackmail him into dropping an investigation into its original expose on his personal life
Goodness ... medium.com/@jeffreypbezos… ... Evidence that, for some reason, the content-author of the simulation we're in wants us to believe he has a twistedly childish sense of humor? Or maybe he just wants us to believe he wants us to believe this? A bit hard to interpret...
I didn't think the tax the rich debate would arrive at an equilibrium of "billionaires get to keep their money but they have to show the world their sexts"
What’s the best touch in Bezos’ post? Perhaps not giving the AMI people the courtesy of redacting their contact information from the communications he just gave to the entire world, including the deputy counsel’s cell number.
Still thinking about this amazing Bezos/AMI story. At the nut is the "nerve" Bezos' investigation has hit with AMI wrt Saudis and political influence. One senses a much larger narrative unwinding here. Feels like so many more shoes may drop...
No thank you, Mr. Pecker. The National Enquirer threatens to publish dick pics and @JeffBezos calls their bluff - and tears the owner a new one medium.com/@jeffreypbezos… via @Medium #journalism
including, supposedly, the now-POTUS). So, what does Bezos do? medium.com/@jeffreypbezos… He reveals the plot, including, the full, embarrassing details relevant to him. What else does Bezos reveal? 1) He's able to weaponize an online, uh, medium in a way only a certain 7/X
if I were Bezos, I'd have had an AWS GPU ML research team deep-fake a thousand variants of each of the 9 photos the National Enquirer threatened to release – and release those myself, simultaneous with this "f-you" post