Amazon CEO and the third wealthiest man in the world, Jeff Bezos bought the third largest newspaper in the United States in 2013, and announced restrictions on the newspaper opinion segment policy. Opinion Editor David Shipley left his job after learning about the changes. What are the new restrictions and why do multiple crypto influencers support change?
On February 26, 2025, on X Post, Bezos shared a note that he sent to Washington Post employees earlier that day. In the memo, Bezos announces that the post will write “support and defense” for two pillars: personal freedom and free markets. Everything that opposes these pillars has no place in the Washington Post.
According to Bezos, freedom is ethical and practical because it minimizes coercion and promotes invention and prosperity. He believes that other perspectives are already well expressed on the internet, so it seems right for him to change the policy of posts. The memo also reveals that opinion editor David Shipley has refused to lead a new direction and has left his position.
Washington Post Shake Up
For years, the Washington Post opinion segment has been a tribune of views from different people, if not polar. This will change now. The New York Times sent staff members citing Washington Post’s Memo CEO Will Lewis, saying the move was “not about surveillance with political parties,” but “becoming clear about what we represent as a newspaper.”
Shipley resigned after a few weeks of conversation between him, Bezos and Lewis, according to the NYT. Shipley admitted the change and decided to resign. Members of the Opinion Committee reportedly were “shocked and unstoppable” by the news.
However, Shipley’s resignation is rather consistent with the latest events of the Washington Post. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Anne Ternus resigned from the post in 2024 after the newspaper refused to publish her work criticizing Jeff Bezos. In the same year, for the first time in decades, Post did not support the presidential candidate. The decision to leave the election led many journalists to leave the newspaper. In 2024, two authors who write for the Washington Post Opinion Segment received Pulitzer Prizes.
Some consider policy changes to the right. It often sounds like his refusal to support a presidential candidate ahead of the 2024 election. The decision is said to have cost 8% of subscribers to the Washington Post. Three of the nine members of the editorial committee resigned in protest. CNBC quotes Molly Roberts, one of the resigned editors. The editorial board supports Trump’s competitor, Kamala Harris, and says Jeff Bezos has decided not to support anyone. Lewis, the publisher and CEO of the newspaper, made these claims inaccurate.
A big person with a code reaction
The announcement was not received smoothly from newspaper employees, but he gave enthusiasm to multiple outstanding personalities in the crypto industry who reposted Bezos’ posts, commenting with praise and sharing his thoughts on the importance of supporting the free market.
Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong expressed his full support for the move and shared an article about the free market published on the Coinbase blog.
Justin Sun of Thron shared the post. Bitwise Invest’s Jeff Park praised the move in the comments section, while Crypto writer Nic Carter took him to the comments section and said he was ready to serve as a columnist on Crypto topics and “fix the coverage.”
Strategy’s Michael Saylor did not mention policy changes, but instead declared that Bitcoin would promote individual freedom and free markets, and appears to have expressed his support for the new direction of the Washington Post.
Bitcoin is the best way to promote personal freedom and free markets. We provide open protocols for prosperity that can be provided to all through digital technology.
– Michael Saylor
(@saylor) February 26, 2025
Many outside the crypto community have expressed dissatisfaction with the move, pointing out contradictions that promote personal freedom, while simultaneously restraining it by banning certain perspectives from newspapers, which have been nonpartisan for over a century.
Its extremely funny you'd have the gall to talk about personal liberties in a post declaring that from now on any writer that works for you will parrot exactly the opinion you want…
— Matt McManus
(@MattPolProf) February 26, 2025
However, praise from the Crypto community seems less illogical if you view Bezos’ announcement as a pledge to support the incumbent administration. Trump’s second presidency is characterized by loosening cryptographic regulations and giving them invisible freedom.
In the first few months of 2025, proposals for state-level Bitcoin reservations began to emerge, along with federal-level proposals introduced and proposed by Republican Sen. Cynthia Lumith. The recent series drop by the SEC against the huge crypto platform and the government’s crusades of Operations Chalk Point 2.0 is just two major examples of the trend of making Trump administration 2.0 a superhero in the eyes of the crypto business. These actions will help fuel the market and shape the future of the crypto sector.
The crypto community is not homogeneous, and some criticize Trump, and it is understood that he is criticising him for the tariff policy that allegedly ruined the price of BTC and the official Trump Meeten launch. More than that, some people don’t like Trump’s persona and his political course. However, in 2025, this attitude is not mainstream in the cryptographic information field.
However, assume that you do not connect to Trump-Bezos. In that case, we can acknowledge that individual free markets and financial empowerment have always been the pillars of the crypto community and ideology. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are bypassing restrictions across borders and giving people new opportunities.
If Bezos says he’s going to protect this, the crypto community is here to support him. However, efforts to silence alternative perspectives on the Washington Post page do not necessarily follow the resistance of crypto-censorship.
Free market and technology
In his article on the free market, Brian Armstrong expresses a strong fear of what he calls Marxism and praises free market capitalism. However, some view Jeff Bezos as not a capitalist, but as a child of the posters of techno-rowdarism, the early system that made capitalism a parasite.
The term was coined by the former Greek finance minister and prolific author Giannis Valofakis. He compared modern technology giants like Apple and Amazon with medieval lords of Europe and medieval lords of Europe, and their businesses with rent-taking territories, and old-fashioned capitalist companies were driven by profits. Currently, “vassal capitalists” must pay “cloud rentals” to tech giants to ensure their products are presented on Amazon, Google Play, and other “Technofeudals” platforms. The concept is new and quite marginal, but it has been gaining more and more attention these days.
Like Nakamoto Atoshi, Valoufakis outlines how the 2008 economic crisis will bail out banks and bankers as a turning point. According to him, these people did not create anything new. They were supposed to blame billions of losses, but they had the money anyway. He compares it to rent, capitalism and money that doesn’t come from creativity and competition that drives free markets.
Amazon reportedly isn’t creating anything new. It simply provides rental paid advertising space for real capitalists, economically driven people. At least Jeff Bezos has the nerve to tolerate Washington Post articles criticizing Amazon for its frustrating ad-based search results. The FTC antitrust lawsuit exam against Amazon is scheduled for 2026.
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