Bezos speaks to the media about Amazon’s sustainability efforts in September 2019 in Washington, DC.
Eric Baradat / AFP / Getty Images
After years of avoiding public attention, Jeff Bezos is being pushed into a high-profile stage: Congress.
Along with three other tech CEOs: Apple’s Tim Cook, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Bezos reluctantly appears Wednesday before a House of Representatives subcommittee investigating the power of the big tech companies. The hearing, which will be Bezos’ debut before lawmakers, is part of a 13-month investigation by the Chamber antitrust subcommittee on technology platforms. A whirlwind of antitrust investigations follows from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and the European Union.
Bezos’ involvement comes despite his well-known aversion to public speaking, allowing his lieutenants to defend his company on Twitter, in hearings, and on television interviews. The Amazon CEO has carefully handled the few events he has participated in, ensuring treatment with gloves for children. Managing Congress, however, will be much more difficult. Politicians are often more interested in scoring than looking for data. Bezos will have to be a quick study.
Despite the company’s power and individual wealth, being the richest person in the world, Bezos will join the interrogation as a newcomer. The other CEOs have made appearances in Congress; Zuckerberg, the youngest, has done three, while Cook and Pichai have each done one.
There is no doubt that Amazon is the king of your Internet corner. Governments and regulators fear that their dominance may crush competition, limit options, and prevent innovation. Some lawmakers have called for Amazon to be broken. Those issues, as well as Amazon’s mistreatment of its warehouse workers, could come up during the hearing.
“How do we structure the online market? How do we govern the online market in a way that ensures open and fair competition?” asked Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and longtime critic of Amazon. “I’m looking less for him for those answers and more for members of Congress and ultimately the American people.”
Amazon declined to comment for this story.
The questions will almost certainly focus on Amazon’s private label business, where the retailer sells its own versions of batteries, diapers, and snacks on its website. Members of the House have expressed concern that Amazon may unfairly profit both from operating your platform and being a seller on it, potentially directing consumers to your own products and away from independent merchants on your site.
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Elected officials fear Amazon will use internal sales information from these smaller sellers against them to offer its own branded products. The strongest evidence that this is happening came from an April story in The Wall Street Journal, which reported Amazon private label workers were pulling data to decide which products to launch. Amazon has said such actions are against its policies and began an investigation into these claims. The company has not released an update on the probe.
Bezos was called to testify after the Journal story, and initially resisted requests. The company offered to send someone else to speak on their behalf. Representative David Cicilline, who chairs the subcommittee, threatened to quote Amazon boss. Bezos relented.
Bezos has been shy for years. He has carefully cultivated a public persona as a visionary lover of space and science, a kind of super nerd as well as an industry titan. He was only forced out of his turtle shell last year when a high profile divorce, an extramarital affair and a blackmail plot deleted the image of an apparently stable and calm personal life.
Since then, Bezos has been seen much more frequently in tabloids. But his focus on the press has not changed. In public appearances, Bezos has generally stuck to talking points. Rarely riffs. Don’t expect anything different in the audience. The potential for failure is low.
When he has given interviews, they have been in friendly settings, such as the informal chat he participated in at his company’s re: MARS conference last year. Your conversation partner: an Amazon employee. There was little chance that the interview would go wrong (although an animal rights protester temporarily interrupted it). Her last major interview with a journalist was in 2018, with Wired’s Steven Levy, but the piece focused on Bezos’ space exploration efforts with his startup Blue Origin.
When speaking in public, Bezos often doesn’t talk about Amazon. He used important public appearances last year to reveal a Blue Origin Moon Lander and a new program called Climate commitment, both in Washington DC. He didn’t answer reporter questions at the Blue Origin event or re: MARS.
Still, Bezos has shown that he can handle himself in a challenging environment, which will surely be the antitrust subcommittee. Six years ago, he consented in an interview with Henry Blodget of Business Insider. The Amazon boss might have hoped Blodget would be easy on him; Bezos was an investor in the publication. But Blodget criticized the CEO and asked about the e-retailer’s seemingly out-of-control spending. Bezos cheerfully defended his positions.
Now we will see if you can do the same with Congress.
