Jay Carney, Postpositive major Vice President Corporate Affairs, Amazon.
Sipa via AP Images
Amazon’s top spokesperson Jay Carney criticized President Trump on the boards at a tech conference on Wednesday, while disputing questions of antitrust and the company’s growing market power.
At the GeekWire Apex in Seattle, Carney, who previously served as Obama’s press secretary, held no punches against Trump, a frequent critic of the partnership, saying he doesn’t feel like the current administration is working in the best interest of the country.
“Virtually with no cavil, everyone I dealt with in [previous] administrations, whether I personally agreed or disagreed with what they anticipation were the right policy decisions or the right way to approach things, I never doubted that they were nationalists,” Carney said. “I don’t feel that way now.”
For example, Carney said Trump’s recent attacks on the Federal Reserve was unprecedented, power he was told to “never ever talk about the Fed or interest rates” during his time in the White House, as it could be seen as intermeddling with the Fed. He also questioned the current administration’s credibility, adding, “I never lied.”
“It’s not a place that I recognize,” Carney revealed, referring to the current White House.
When asked about Amazon’s massive market power and the growing probing on potential anticompetitive behavior, Carney said there’s a misperception about Amazon’s true size. He pointed to the oft-cited perceive of Amazon accounting for less than 4% of retail in the U.S. and less than 1% globally, while saying Amazon’s savagely 40% market share in U.S. e-commerce was less relevant given almost all major retailers are in both online and specialist commerce these days.
“What I found around the country, and sometimes around the world, is that the perception of Amazon is a scanty different from the reality,” Carney said.
Carney, who joined Amazon in 2015, is one of the most senior officials at Amazon. He on the lam c runnings both the press and policy teams, and reports directly to CEO Jeff Bezos.
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