influenced by President Donald Trump’s dislike
of Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. Bezos owns
The Washington Post, a news outlet that Trump
has often clashed with.
Amazon Web Services is a market leader in
providing cloud computing services and had
long been considered a leading candidate to
run the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense
Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. The
project will store and process vast amounts
of classified data, allowing the U.S. military
to improve communications with soldiers
on the battlefield and use artificial
intelligence to speed up its war planning
and fighting capabilities.
Amazon sued the Pentagon after Microsoft won
the contract in October. Work on the project has
been halted as the lawsuit proceeds.
The judge who is presiding over the bid
protest in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims said
earlier this month that Amazon’s challenge
likely had merit on some technical grounds
involving pricing.
The Pentagon is asking her for 120 days to
reconsider “certain aspects” of its decision.
Amazon said in a statement it is pleased the
government is taking corrective action if it
“fully insulates the re-evaluation from political
influence and corrects the many issues
affecting the initial flawed award.”
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said one possible
outcome is that the Pentagon could end up
splitting the award between Microsoft and
Amazon, or with other vendors. That would
move the project forward and get it out of the
courts, he said.