Jeff Bezos has defended his company’s decision to pump millions of dollars into a documentary movie about Melania Trump that was totally panned by critics, while insisting that his dealings with the president are non-partisan.
“The Melania thing is a falsehood that will not die,” the Amazon founder told CNBC in an interview Wednesday. “So it was reported all the time that somehow I was involved in this…I had nothing to do with that.”
The movie, titled Melania, was released in theaters in January and was met with an overwhelmingly negative response from critics and audiences. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 10 percent, and The Independent described the movie as a “ghastly bit of propaganda.”
Despite this, Bezos claimed that backing the movie had been “a good business decision” for Amazon.
“You know that it did very well in theaters. It's done very well on streaming. People are very curious about Melania, so even though I had nothing to do with it, you know. It appears that the Amazon team made a very wise business decision,” he told CNBC.
Having cost some $40 million dollars to produce, and $35 million to market, the film generated just over $16 million globally.
Bezos also heaped praise on Donald Trump, saying that the president was “a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term.”
“I've worked with all the presidents, I will work with all the presidents, and I hope to do that going forward, if they'll have me,” he said. “We need our business leaders to provide input into the administration, regardless of who the president is.”
He added that he was not on any particular political side, but instead was “on the side of America,” and often called former President Barack Obama for advice.
“He was a very smart guy,” he said, before adding: “By the way, people that are Trump have lots of good ideas, and he's done a lot of – he's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the world’s fourth richest man said that taxing him more would not solve any societal problems.
“People sometimes say that I don't pay taxes, that’s not true. I pay billions of dollars in taxes…and if people want me to pay more billions then let's have that debate. But don't pretend that that's going to solve the problem,” he said.
He added: “You could double the taxes I pay, and it's not going to help that teacher in Queens [New York]. I promise you… You can't connect those two things, not logically, you know.”
The Independent has contacted representatives of Bezos for comment on his remarks.
