"Obsessed" Trump reportedly cost Amazon $10 billion defence contract

Donald Trump's dislike of Amazon, described by an Axios report as an "obsession," has reportedly cost Amazon a $10 billion opportunity. In a lawsuit at the US Court of Federal Claims, Amazon stated that "improper pressure" and a "personal vendetta against Mr. Bezos, Amazon, and the Washington Post" resulted in Amazon losing out on a $10 billion JEDI cloud computing project for the US military.

The JEDI project, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure plan, is a cloud computing initiative that would enable the US military to store and process large quantities of classified information. The contract was awarded by the Pentagon to Microsoft.

Dismissing Amazon's claim, Pentagon spokesperson Elissa Smith said that "This source selection decision was made by an expert team of career public servants and military officers from across the Department of Defense and in accordance with DoD's normal source-selection process."

The US President has spoken out about Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and Washington Post--a newspaper Bezos owns--on numerous occasions. The problem seems to stem from the fact that the Washington Post (among several other major US news outlets) regularly reports on Trump's international and domestic gaffes. Shortly before being elected, Trump told CNBC that "If I become president, oh do they have problems. They're going to have such problems," with regards to Amazon. 

In the days to come, Amazon will have to demonstrate "improper activity" that goes beyond the President's tweets and televised statements to win their claim. Speaking to the Washington Post, Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore contracting law professor, said Amazon's faced an "uphill battle" to win. We will keep you posted.