What Trump 2.0 means for Amazon

Today's tech check. Kate, welcome. Hi, Kelly. Yeah, there is so much to consider when you look at what Trump might mean for Amazon this time around. Its business touches so much of the economy, but one key piece of friction you mentioned between Amazon and Trump has been eased. That is the relationship with Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, no longer CEO. He's seemingly buried the hatchet at this point, congratulating Trump on what he called an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory, also pushing the controversial move at his newspaper, The Washington Post, to not endorse a presidential candidate just weeks before that election. Last week, Bezos was an outspoken critic of Trump, who often accused Amazon of things like not paying its fair share of taxes, among other barbs. Trump repeatedly slammed The Washington Post, which I mentioned Jeff Bezos does own. The hope now, on Wall Street at least, is that Amazon's current CEO, Andy Jassy, is more diplomatic, less controversial, and less of a target for Trump. Big tech in general has been a target for Trump and some of his appointees. Dan Ives, at least, thinks that Amazon could be a bit more immune from some of the criticism because it's not a social media company. Meta and Google, at this point, have been getting the brunt of that. Amazon has outperformed some of those names, at least in the past few weeks. Antitrust is a toss-up, while it's unclear exactly what the FTC and potentially DOJ look like with Matt Gaetz. Gene Munster is among those that do expect deals to pick up and says that AI deals are going to be especially crucial for Amazon. Amazon has been hamstrung by the Biden administration when it comes to M&A, iRobot, one big example of that. And then there's China and the trade policy. That could really cut both ways here. Trump is expected to ramp up tariffs, which could increase prices on Amazon. Mark Mahaney over at Evercore thinks this is a net negative for Amazon, outweighing even lower corporate taxes. Finally, one big area that's going to affect Amazon more than the rest of big tech, labor issues and immigration, Kelly.