President Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited a Blue Origin factory in Florida this week, where he was greeted by the company’s founder and owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos.
It was a meeting that took on new optics after the announcement on Wednesday that the Bezos-owned Washington Post would slash its newsroom by almost a third, dropping 300 employees. Bezos has openly curried favor with the Trump administration, which has continuously denigrated and undermined news outlets like the Post, deriding any unflattering story as “fake news.”
And while Bezos hosted Hegseth in Florida, he was not present at the Post for the layoffs.
[Note: According to Space News, Blue Origin has secured more than $4 billion in total funding from NASA, primarily driven by a $3.4 billion contract to develop the “Blue Moon” lander for the Artemis V mission (targeted 2029). Blue Origin has also secured funds for commercial space station development ($130M) and national-security space launch services ($2.4B).]
Jeff Bezos gave Trump $40 million by buying the ‘Melania’ documentary through Amazon.
Last week, it premiered.
Now, Trump’s ‘Secretary of War’ visits Bezos’ Blue Origin, which gets billions in government contracts.
Trump gets paid. Taxpayers get screwed. https://t.co/10F7nsT6ma
— Congressman Greg Casar (@RepCasar) February 2, 2026
U.S. Congressman Greg Casar (D-TX) responded to the meeting at Blue Origin by writing on social media: “Jeff Bezos gave Trump $40 million by buying the ‘Melania’ documentary through Amazon. Last week, it premiered. Now, Trump’s ‘Secretary of War’ visits Bezos’ Blue Origin, which gets billions in government contracts. Trump gets paid. Taxpayers get screwed.”
The Washington Post news was also characterized by critics as a quid pro quo move, a capitulation by the billionaire to purported pressure from the Trump administration to scale back scrutiny of its actions. Among those dropped from the Post was the paper’s Ukraine bureau chief and correspondent and the entire Middle East desk.
“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” former Post Executive Editor Marty Baron said in a statement Wednesday.