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- In an extraordinary blog post on Thursday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the National Enquirer and its parent company AMI threatened to publish intimate personal photos of the billionaire tech exec.
- AMI allegedly threatened to publish the photos, unless Bezos stopped his investigation into the original National Enquirer report of his affair — and unless he made a statement disavowing that the original National Enquirer investigation into his alleged affair was politically motivated, says the blog.
- Bezos said that he refuses to give in to "extortion and blackmail," and believes that it would be a "lie" to say that there was no political motive, noting that the National Enquirer has long been an ally of President Donald Trump, a fierce critic of Bezos and Amazon.
- David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, has been linked to the Saudi government. Bezos wrote that the "Saudi angle" to his investigation "seems to have hit a particularly sensitive nerve" with Becker.
- According to e-mails published by Bezos, lawyers for AMI argued that the intimate photos qualify as newsworthy because they reflect on his judgment as CEO of Amazon — a notion that Bezos rejected, saying that Amazon’s string of successes "speak for themselves."
- Bezos acknowledged that his ownership of the Washington Post is a "complexifier" for the situation, but says that it will be will be "something I will be most proud of when I’m 90 and reviewing my life."
- Representatives for Amazon and AMI did not respond to a request for comment.
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See Also:
- Read all the emails Jeff Bezos says the National Enquirer sent to ‘blackmail’ him
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer publisher of ‘extortion’ over naked photos in extraordinary blog post
- Jeff Bezos ‘enraged’ the National Enquirer by tweeting about his divorce before the Lauren Sanchez exposé was published
Source: Business Insider