The saga of the JEDI contract continues! In October of 2019, The Department of Defense chose Microsoft over Amazon for its “Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure” project. The contract could be worth as much as $10 billion over a decade.
In November of 2019, The Washington Post (which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon), posted an article stating that Amazon would challenge the Pentagon’s decision on the JEDI project. Today, CNBC reported that Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, wants to depose President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and former Defense Secretary James Mattis over the JEDI contract that was awarded to Microsoft.
A spokesperson for Amazon Web Services told CNBC the following:
“President Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to use his position as President and Commander in Chief to interfere with government functions – including federal procurements – to advance his personal agenda. The preservation of public confidence in the nation’s procurement process requires discovery and supplementation of the administrative record, particularly in light of President Trump’s order to ‘screw Amazon.’ The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends.”
Personally, I don’t think this statement, or the (now unsealed) court documents filed by Amazon, are going to make any difference. The Trump administration has a history of not releasing information that it doesn’t want to. I have no idea why Amazon believes that Trump said ‘screw Amazon’, but honestly, this President has said other crass things, so it wouldn’t surprise me if President Trump actually did say that. I also do not understand why one of the richest companies in the world is so worried about the JEDI contract. It is unimaginable that Amazon needs the money.