Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk And The Billions Of Ways To Influence An Election

Entrepreneurs become legends when they make big bets on technology that pay off in a huge and dramatic way. Elon Musk is now applying that all-or-nothing philosophy to a presidential election, tying his reputation and perhaps his future to a win by Donald J. Trump.

- DAVID STREITFELD

Jeff Bezos, the reigning swashbuckler of the internet age until Musk came along, was playing a cooler game, content to let Musk take the headlines and the risk. Then last week Bezos ventured—well, stumbled—into the heart of the news.

Among his many properties is The Washington Post, which he bought in 2013. The paper's editorial board was preparing to recommend the Democratic nominee for president, Kamala Harris, when Bezos canceled the endorsement at the last minute.

It wasn't supposed to be a big deal, just a ho-hum announcement of something not happening. Instead, the greatest salesperson of the era, whose customer obsession had made Amazon into a colossus of modern retail, got the greatest customer rejection of a lifetime.

A quarter-million Post readers canceled their subscriptions, a figure first reported by NPR and then by The Post itself. That is about 10 percent of the total circulation. The speed and decisive force of the cancellations was a bit of a shock but also weirdly appropriate, said Danny Caine, author of "How to Resist Amazon and Why."