Derek Thompson

Before 2020, Blue Origin had only signed contracts worth barely $100 million.

In 2023, Blue Origin signed its largest federal contract for human landing system for Artemis missions with NASA, $3.4 billion.

That was under the Biden administration.

2025, Blue Origin signs another contract for launch services with the US Space Force.

That's $2.3 billion.

Jeff Bezos is in the business of signing contracts

under a government and under a president that we know is vindictive, that rewards people who do things, who do favors for him, and punishes people who criticize him.

And so it's, in a way, while it's terrible for journalism, it doesn't seem to me to be very mysterious that Bezos is essentially sacrificing a lesser asset to protect a larger asset.

by essentially allowing the Post to wither, reject the fact that there's a clear strategy here that could work.

When the Post's identity was democracy dies in darkness, we're going to stand against the authoritarian tendencies, the Trump administration, its subscriptions sextupled between 2017 and 2020.

Clearly, that strategy could work to a certain extent again.

I think they're not pursuing it because Bezos has decided that pursuing it would put at risk a business that is now doing $5 billion at least with the government, at least in contracts signed in the last few years.

It seems to me like you just can't ignore an explanation that's that potentially obvious.

You were engaged in a Twitter conversation about what you would do if someone tapped you on the shoulder.

Maybe it's Jeff himself and said, what would you do to save the post?

Do you want to walk me through some of your thoughts about what you think is possible right now to turn around this institution that's so important to you as it is to me?

And just to be clear, this is an allusion to the fact that I believe it was Bezos himself in an interview or maybe a statement.

If there's a 19-year-old listener or viewer right now, they're like, that actually sounds like a Washington Post that I might subscribe to.

Maybe just one more question on the Post before we broaden the conversation and talk about changes to the media and political landscape in the last 20 years.

It seems to me like the easiest, dumbest, lowest hanging fruit here is the Washington Post has for years, decades, seen itself as being in competition with the New York Times.