P O L I T I C S
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Edited by
Paula Dwyer,
Sara Forden, and
Jillian Goodman○ The tech giant now spends
more money on lobbying than
all but one of its peersAfter building out a powerful influence machine in
Washington over the last few years, Amazon is going
on the attack.
The Seattle-based company is pushing aside
trade groups it doesn’t like and creating ones it
does. It’s dispatching senior executives to woo anti-
trust enforcers. And it’s poaching senior staff from
government agencies and congressional offices.
Federal records show that Amazon.com Inc. lob-
bied more government entities than any other tech
company in 2018 and sought to exert its influence
over more issues than any of its tech peers except
Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Last year, Amazon spent
$14.2 million on lobbying, a record for the company,
up from its previous high of $12.8 million in 2017. The
$77 million that the nine tech companies included in
the chart below spent in 2018 to lobby Washington
looks minuscule next to the $280 million spent by
pharmaceutical and health-care products compa-
nies. Tech has, however, pulled ahead of the $64 mil-
lion that commercial banks spent—and Amazon in
particular has a cachet that allows it to punch above
its weight at times. Of the nine, only the $21 million
Google spent on lobbying beat Amazon’s total. Since
2012, Amazon has ramped up spending by morethan 460 percent—much faster than its rivals.
Amazon is also showing a new level of assertive-
ness in advancing its corporate interests, though
largely out of the public eye. The company’s recent
high-profile imbroglios, which include the abrupt
abandonment of a deal for a new headquarters in
New York City and founder and Chief Executive
Officer Jeff Bezos’ blackmail allegations against the
National Enquirer, belie the extent and sophistica-
tion of the company’s behind-the-scenes efforts.
Jay Carney, President Barack Obama’s press
secretary and now Amazon’s senior vice pres-
ident for global corporate affairs, oversees the
Washington policy office, whose roster of in-house
lobbyists ballooned to 28 in 2018, from 11 in 2015.
That doesn’t include the 13 outside lobbying firms
Amazon employs. “They realized they’re just get-
ting so big,” says Frank Pasquale, a University of
Maryland law professor, of Amazon’s lobbying
prowess. “They’re crushing so many small play-
ers, they’re recognizing that there’s going to be
some political backlash.”
One of Amazon’s priorities is to persuade fed-
eral agencies to rent Amazon’s vast cloud computing
services rather than maintain their own. (Amazon
then bids for the work through the federal procure-
ment process.) The company also wants to power a
planned, governmentwide e-commerce portal for
official purchases of everything from office furniture
to paper clips—a $50 billion market.
Old-line computer and software vendors—not toBloomberg Businessweek March 11, 2019Amazon Flexes Its
Washington Muscles
ARGUES IN H2 2006:
FAVOR OF TELECOM
H1 2003: REFORM
FIRST PUSH FOR NET
NEUTRALITYH1 2000