Jeff Bezos Defends $75M Melania Movie as a ‘Good Business Decision’ — But Claims He Had ‘Nothing to Do With it’

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos praised his company’s Melania Trump documentary as a “good business decision,” but denied he had anything to do with it or that it was made to buy favor with President Donald Trump.

Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Bezos from Florida for Wednesday’s Squawk Box and asked at one point about critics accusing Bezos of using his businesses to “placate” the president. Sorkin cited criticism around the recent film Melania, a documentary following the first lady around the time of Trump’s second inauguration.

The film’s reported $40 million production budget (plus another $35 million in marketing) had many scratching their heads as documentaries rarely come attached with such high budgets. The movie grossed just over $16 million worldwide in theaters and is now streaming on Amazon’s Prime service.

Though Melania came nowhere near covering its budget, it did enjoy the biggest opening for a non-music documentary in a decade.

“I had nothing to do with that. By the way, it appears it was a good business decision. You know, it did very well in theaters, it has done very well on streaming, people are very curious about Melania. So even though I had to do nothing with it, you know, it appears that the Amazon team made a very wise business decision,” Bezos told Sorkin.

Check out the exchange below:

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: There’s a view among critics that say that part of what you have done or are doing is trying to placate the president with either the sort of shift in the tone of what’s happening at [The Washington Post] or even some of the things at Amazon, the decision to make the documentary around Melania, for example.

JEFF BEZOS: Yes, the Melania thing is a falsehood that will not die. So, you know, I see it reported all the time that somehow I was involved in this, and I know we did this at this Mar-a-Lago dinner —

SORKIN: Everybody thinks that you went to Mar-a-Lago and —

BEZOS: It’s not true. We have denied it. Melania’s office has denied it, it’s not true. I had nothing to do with that. By the way, it appears it was a good business decision. You know, it did very well in theaters, it has done very well on streaming, people are very curious about Melania. So even though I had to do nothing with it, you know, it appears that the Amazon team made a very wise business decision. I also had nothing do with Project Hail Mary, which I regret, because it’s an incredible success. I wish I had greenlit that, but I didn’t. And so, you know, Amazon’s a big company, it makes a lot of decisions, but no, this idea that somehow that is a way of buying influence, it’s just not correct. I can see why people say this, and by the way, you now, the same thing at The Post. You know, I want it’s The Post’s opinion section right to stand for free markets, kind of what I’ve been talking to you about today, free markets and individual personal liberties. I think those are founding pillars of America. It’s one of the reasons that America has been so successful. We have an incredible history.

Watch above via CNBC.

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