• The president says polls published by The New York Times and The Washington Post, along with ABC, are "fake polls."
• He says those publishers should face "election fraud" investigations.
• That makes no sense. And maybe he doesn't mean it. But his recent track record of attacking media companies means we can't be sure.

Donald Trump doesn't like a new set of polls that show his popularity eroding. In a Truth Social post, he says the news companies that published them should face "election fraud" investigations.

This is the kind of thing Trump has said many times. Up until recently, it was easy to ignore. After all, it's certainly not fraud to publish a poll someone doesn't like.

Right?

Except, of course, things are different now: Trump is already suing The Des Moines Register, its owner Gannett, and the pollster Ann Selzer for publishing a poll he didn't like during the 2024 election.

Trump filed that suit after he won the election last year, but before he was sworn in as president in January. And since Trump's inauguration, Brendan Carr, Trump's choice to head the Federal Communications Commission, has announced probes into Disney and Comcast over their diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.

Carr has also opened an inquiry into an interview that ran last year on Paramount/CBS's "60 Minutes" with Kamala Harris. That's theoretically separate, but quite parallel, to a lawsuit Trump filed in 2024 over the same interview. That story got new attention last week when Bill Owens, the top producer at "60 Minutes," said he was stepping down because he'd lost his editorial independence. Subsequent reports said Paramount's owner, Shari Redstone, who wants to sell her company to Larry and David Ellison, had been weighing in on programming at the show and CBS News in general.

So. On the one hand, you'd be excused for ignoring a social media post from a president who says things on social media and elsewhere that he may not actually mean — or may mean at one point but then decide that he doesn't mean, after all. (Trump now says that his promise to solve the war between Russia and Ukraine on his first day in office — something he brought up dozens of times in 2024 and 2023 — was actually made "in jest.")

You might also point out that even if Trump is serious, it's not clear which federal agency or official could carry out his wishes. While Carr theoretically gets to weigh in on the likes of Comcast and Paramount because they own broadcast licenses, the FCC doesn't have any oversight of the Times or the Post. (I've asked both Carr and the White House for comment.)

But one thing we are learning about 2025 is that things Trump writes or says — even if they are illogical or impossible — sometimes get turned into action, anyway.

If I'm running a media organization — or simply someone who thinks the federal government shouldn't be threatening media organizations because it doesn't like what they publish — I wouldn't brush this off completely.

• Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray detailed a newsroom reorganization in a memo to staff.
• He said the paper must evolve to new reader habits and sharpen its mission.
• The changes come after owner Jeff Bezos overhauled the paper's opinion pages last month.

The shake-ups keep coming at Jeff Bezos' Washington Post.

The Post's executive editor, Matt Murray, detailed substantial changes to the newsroom Monday, including several new leadership roles and reorganized teams.

In a memo viewed by Business Insider, Murray said the paper needed to evolve to new reader habits and the rise of AI in a competitive news environment.

"That will mean less commodity news, a greater variety of story formats and a sharper focus on work that is truly riveting, relevant and reflecting a wider range of voices that speaks to a larger audience," he wrote to staff.

"Where we have long thought of ourselves as a writer's paper, we will become a reader's news organization," he added.

On the organizational side, the paper is splitting up its national department into two teams: one focused on politics and government — which Murray said will "remain a central pillar" — and the other on national reporting, covering issues and figures outside Washington.

Murray said the Post would also combine its business, technology, health and science, and climate teams together into a new department.

Axios first reported on Murray's memo.

These new changes come after months of controversy surrounding the Post and its direction under Bezos' ownership, as well as a broader upheaval in the news business.

The Post last month overhauled its opinion pages, with Bezos announcing coverage would center on two key pillars: personal liberties and free markets. That decision resulted in a swath of subscription cancellations, NPR reported — a similar response that followed the Post's decision not to run a Presidential endorsement in the last election.

Martin Baron, who was executive editor of the Post from 2013 to 2021, blasted the opinion changes at the time in a statement BI, saying he was "sad and disgusted." Baron added that it had been counter to Bezos' history of standing up for editorial independence at the Post during Baron's tenure.

On Monday, columnist and associate editor Ruth Marcus became the latest prominent journalist to leave the Post. Marcus left after 40 years at the paper. She said in a note that a column she'd written that was critical of the opinion section changes had been axed, The New York Times' Ben Mullin reported.

"We're grateful for Ruth's significant contributions to The Washington Post over the past 40 years," a Post spokesperson told BI in a statement. "We respect her decision to leave and wish her the best."

As part of the paper's ongoing reinvention, Murray announced two new leadership roles reporting to him — a managing editor to oversee the central news desk, and a head of print who will lead a team that's separate from the digitally minded newsroom.

He added there would be new roles within WP Ventures, which is focused on social media and innovation.

"In News, we are embarked on a big effort involving all of us, and it is a disruptive one, admittedly," Murray concluded. "I realize the path we are taking may not be for everyone—and that's OK."

You can read the memo in full below:

Dear All:

In January, I shared thoughts on our future, and the transformation work under way in the newsroom. As you have seen from job postings in recent days, we have begun the next phase, which includes the creation of new senior roles and new teams.

The process underway is exciting, and requires significant rethinking of what we do, how we do it and how we are organized to change and grow. My hope is that everyone at The Post shows up with energy, enthusiasm, and ambition as we work to reinvent ourselves for long-term success.

Our journalism has many strengths, as you demonstrate every day. We build on a proud legacy and a deep well of talent and commitment as we pursue our mission of providing fair, fact-based journalism, without fear or favor, to a broad audience across the country, work that informs, delights, and engages, and that holds power to account.

Now The Post needs to evolve with reader habits, new opportunities, and technological developments, particularly the smart use of AI as it continues to develop and dramatically reshape users' experiences of news. To grow on- and off-platform in a more competitive news environment, we must focus fully on finding new audiences and meeting all audiences where they are. We will do that by broadening the topics we own and deepening the distinctiveness and expertise in our journalism. That will mean less commodity news, a greater variety of story formats and a sharper focus on work that is truly riveting, relevant and reflecting a wider range of voices that speaks to a larger audience. We will focus further on ambitious journalism--scoops, unique insights and must-read narratives, and smart analysis built on expertise.

Within the newsroom, we will become fully digitally oriented in our setup, workflows and journalism, better use data to shape coverage and publishing, and constantly innovate to improve our digital products and presentation with a far greater variety of formats. Text will no longer be a default and length no more a measure of quality.

Our decision-making, our commissioning and even the focus of our daily mission are very diffuse across the room and too often disconnected. That is part of why we write too many incremental stories or similar stories (many of which don't get much readership) and sometimes lack enough diversity of content across departments. Our common future depends on having strong digital news products and maximizing their reach, but we don't operate that way.

We must be obsessed with engagement, both what works and—being honest with ourselves —what doesn't, from headlines through story selection and length. Where we have long thought of ourselves as a writer's paper, we will become a reader's news organization.

A focus in this phase is beefing up the central news desk to focus on our core digital products and drive more from the center of the newsroom. We will be hampered until we improve our daily budgeting and workflows and establish a better publishing schedule aligned with reader habits and improve our editing strength and management. To kick off the process of rebuilding the news desk, we have posted for a new Managing Editor role to build the desk up and to oversee the news day 24/7 and will upgrade digital output and presentation. The desk restructuring will lead to additional new roles as it proceeds. The job reports to me.

Two other new senior opportunities attached to the desk have been posted. We are hiring a Head of Print. This new role will first create a self-contained print production desk to fully ring-fence print from the rest of the newsroom and make it completely downstream, so the majority of us can focus our efforts on our growing digital products. Once the desk is built, the Head of Print will oversee production of the daily paper, keeping our print product lively, robust, visually strong and engaging. This role will report to me.

We also seek a Weekend Editor to manage the news desk and run the news day during the weekends. The Weekend Editor will report to the ME/News Hub, and work four days a week, starting Thursdays.

We also are reorganizing several news departments, with the aim of broadening the range of our coverage. The existing National department becomes two new departments, one focused on Politics and Government, and one on National reporting. Politics will encompass most of our reporters and editors covering the political scene and the government, which remain a central pillar for The Post. The Economics and Economic Policy team from Business will move to this department.

National, which incorporates the America team, the education team, and the GA desk in Washington, will have a remit to cover the United States and important issues and figures outside of Washington and across the country more broadly. We are posting the department head roles for both new departments, as well as several new reporting roles in each.

We also are bringing several teams—Business, Technology, Health & Science and Climate—together in a new department that will bring our readers to the frontiers of the 21st century — how businesses are transforming across the economy; how scientific and technological shifts are affecting daily life; and what it all means for people's health, security and the planet. The department-head role also is being posted.

Each reorganized department will have a Senior Editor for Audience Growth and a Senior Editor for Visuals. The data editors will play central roles in our daily coverage, ensuring we are properly meeting reader opportunities, and the visuals roles will aim to further deepen digital storytelling across the newsroom. The reorganization allows us to better balance these resources across the room.

Along with new roles in these departments we have posted new reporting and editing opportunities to fill out some areas of coverage. They include new roles in WP Ventures, led by Krissah Thompson and Sam Henig, which continues to build out its new Creator Hub and new senior roles.

We are moving to quicky fill the new department-head roles, and from there other jobs. Once leadership is in place, each department will work through a content review with our project team, led by Mark Smith, and some details still remain to be fixed. We plan to have changes in place by no later than Monday, May 5, though more moves will certainly follow as we continue our reinvention project.

We have scheduled a meeting today at 3 p.m. in the Live Center on the fourth floor to talk about these changes and our ongoing transformation project. We will send a Zoom link for those unable to attend in person.

It is a time of change across all of The Post, as we know. In News, we are embarked on a big effort involving all of us, and it is a disruptive one, admittedly. I realize the path we are taking may not be for everyone—and that's OK.

But we have a strong mission and commitment and many opportunities, even in a changing landscape, as we work to strengthen and secure The Post's future. I'm proud of all your work and grateful for your continued contributions.

Matt

• Jeff Bezos' newest op-ed shift at The Washington Post has reportedly cost it 75,000 subscribers in a couple of days.
• That's on top of even bigger subscriber losses last fall, when he ordered the paper to stop doing presidential endorsements.
• Bezos' moves seem like they are helping him win favor with Donald Trump. But if they're going to cost his paper money — why own it at all?

Let's stipulate that Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million. So he can do anything he wants with it.

Like ordering the paper's editors not to make a presidential endorsement. Or announcing that from now on the paper's op-ed pages would only publish stuff that supports "personal liberties and free markets," as he announced this week.

That said, those decisions seem to be costing Bezos money, at the very least.

When the billionaire announced his non-endorsement plans last fall, days before the election, hundreds of thousands of subscribers canceled their subscriptions in less than two weeks, NPR's David Folkenflik previously reported.

Now Folkenflik reports that 75,000 subscribers have left the paper following Bezos' op-ed shift, announced on Wednesday. Though a Post executive told Folkenflik the paper signed up another 400,000 subscribers in between Bezos' announcements, numbers Folkenflik has seen indicate the Post has "a net loss of a couple hundred thousand subscribers," he reported. A Post rep declined to comment about subscription numbers.

The important context here is that prior to Bezos' op-ed moves, he had installed new leadership at the Post, tasked with finding new readers and new ways to make money. Now, he appears to be making both things harder.

It's always possible that Bezos' moves will generate more readership from people who want to read an op-ed page promoting a libertarian/conservative point of view. Though it's hard to believe that market is "underserved," as he argued in his memo announcing the changes: Among traditional media, both The Economist and The Wall Street Journal service that market today.

And it's very easy to find that point of view on the wider internet (and particularly on Twitter, now that Elon Musk bought it, changed its name to X, and began amplifying right-learning accounts).

It's also possible that after this newest controversy, the Post will eventually settle into another version of the Journal, which has a famously right-wing op-ed section and does respected, down-the-middle news reporting in the rest of its pages.

And it's also worth noting that on Friday, two days after Bezos kicked off the latest unrest among his readers and his staff, WaPo op-ed writer Dana Milbank published a story arguing that "the single greatest threat to "personal liberties and free markets" in the United States today [is] President Donald Trump." So we really don't know how all of this will shake out.

That said … from outside the paper, Bezos' moves look like they're calculated to please a single reader. President Donald Trump.

Ask Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News personality who now hosts a successful podcast/YouTube show: "He's doing what Joe [Scarborough] and Mika [Brzezinski] did. He's bending the knee," she said at an event hosted by Semafor this week, referring to the MSNBC hosts' visit to Trump days after last fall's election.

Will that work? Maybe, says Kelly, who appeared onstage at a Trump rally during the last campaign.

"You win respect with Trump when you go to him and you tell him 'I like you,' which is clearly what Bezos did. The reporting is very clear," she said. "I think Trump and he will be fine. But that doesn't make any difference at all to somebody like me, who's actually looking for sincerity."

So if you follow that critique, Bezos is in a bit of a pickle: He can steer his paper in a way that could make the president of the United States happy — but will lose readers on the left, and won't gain them on the right.

Maybe all of that is OK for the third-richest man in the world, who could buy another 100 Washington Posts and still have more money than Larry Ellison, who's currently one slot behind him on Forbes's tally of the world's billionaires.

But then why own the Post at all? Then Bezos wouldn't have to worry about what Donald Trump, or Megyn Kelly, or anyone else — including the paper's readers — think about it.

• Trump told an interviewer that he dined with Jeff Bezos on Wednesday night.
• That's the same day Bezos announced a major shake-up at the Washington Post's opinion section.
• Trump said little about the dinner, but marveled that so many billionaires are cozying up to him.

President Donald Trump says he had dinner with Jeff Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post, on Wednesday night.

That's the same day that Bezos announced a major shake-up of the Post's opinion section, including a new focus on defending "personal liberties and free markets."

Trump told The Spectator in an interview conducted on Thursday that he "had dinner with Jeff Bezos last night."

The president offered few details of the encounter, and it's unclear who else was at the dinner, or what was discussed. A White House spokesman declined to comment further, while representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump demurred when asked whether he trusts Bezos: "Who do I trust? I mean, who do you trust? Do you trust anybody? These are very smart guys."

But he also marveled at how Bezos and other billionaires, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have cozied up to him since his 2024 election victory.

"We have dinners together, usually started by them. I'm so busy with all of this. Between China, Russia, Ukraine, I've got more things happening," Trump told the outlet. "I said, 'would you have been here if I lost,' you know? 'Would you have been here if I lost it?' They never answer that question. Actually, they just sort of shy away from it."

Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other major tech billionaires and CEOs attended the inauguration in January, with prime seating in front of Trump's Cabinet. It was a stark reversal from Trump's first term in office, when he had a more antagonistic relationship with many of those tech leaders.

In October, Bezos blocked the Post from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

• Jeff Bezos unveiled sweeping changes to The Washington Post's opinion pages.
• Coverage will now center around two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.
• The search for a new opinions editor has begun after David Shipley stepped away, Bezos said.

Jeff Bezos unveiled sweeping changes to The Washington Post's opinion page in a note to staff that he also shared on X.

"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets," Bezos wrote. "We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."

Bezos, who owns the Post, said there's no longer a need for "a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views" because of the internet.

"I am of America and for America, and proud to be so," he wrote. "And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else."

As part of the overhaul, Bezos said that opinions editor David Shipley is stepping away from the paper, and that the search is on for a replacement.

Will Lewis, publisher and CEO of the Post, echoed Bezos' view in his own staff memo.

"This is not about siding with any political party," Lewis wrote in a memo shared with Business Insider. "This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper."

While newspaper owners generally set the direction of opinion pages, the shift prompted some fierce criticism.

Martin Baron, who was executive editor of the Post from 2013 to 2021, emailed BI that he was "sad and disgusted" by Bezos' action, calling it counter to his history of standing up for editorial independence at the Post while Baron was there.

"Bezos argues for personal liberties. But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section," Baron wrote. "It was only weeks ago that The Post described itself as providing coverage for 'all of America.' Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does."

Chief economics reporter Jeff Stein wrote on X that the move was a "massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post's opinion section."

"Makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there," he wrote.

A current Post staffer on the news side told BI that there was "a lot of tension in the newsroom that we're next."

"Top editors are reminding us that so far there hasn't been any interference in the newsroom," this person said. They asked for anonymity in discussing internal matters; their identity is known to BI.

The staffer also said Bezos's heavy-handed messaging felt like a first, likening it to "a proclamation coming down from high."

This new shake-up comes after a series of controversies at the Post.

In October, the Post made waves when it opted not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election — a decision that the Post reported came from Bezos himself.

Following a year of internal turmoil, hundreds of Post staffers sent Bezos a letter in January asking him to intervene after integrity and transparency issues — far beyond the endorsement controversy, the letter said — had precipitated staff departures.

The Los Angeles Times has also been roiled by controversy after its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, became more involved in the paper's opinion section. Before the presidential election, he stopped the paper from endorsing then-VP Kamala Harris. He also said the paper had moved too far to the left and called for a more balanced approach to covering President Donald Trump.

In his second term, Trump has put greater pressure on the mainstream US news media. His administration has opened investigations into news organizations and thwarted some outlets' access to covering events.

Here's the note that Bezos shared with staff in full:

I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.

There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.

I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.

I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't "hell yes," then it had to be "no." After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won't be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.

I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void.

Jeff

• The Washington Post cut an ad urging Trump to fire Elon Musk, watchdog group Common Cause said.
• Common Cause said it had a $115,000 deal to run ads in the Post's Tuesday print editions.
• The Post initially approved the nature of the ad, and didn't say why it was rejected, the org said.

The Washington Post scrapped an ad calling for President Donald Trump to "fire Elon Musk" that was slated to run in some of its Tuesday print editions, according to one of the organizations that ordered the ad.

Advocacy group Common Cause had agreed to pay $115,000 to the Post to run an ad criticizing billionaire Elon Musk wrapped around the newspapers and a similar ad inside the paper, the organization told Business Insider.

The ads are part of a bigger campaign by Common Cause called "Fire Elon Musk," urging people to sign a petition calling for Musk's removal as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency.

The ad, which Common Cause later posted on its website, features Elon Musk laughing behind an image of the White House, and says in large text, "Who's running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?"

Smaller text below the image states that the Tesla CEO "has created chaos and confusion and put our livelihoods at risk" and notes that "the Constitution only allows for one president at a time."

The group said the Post initially approved the nature of the ad but that the Post informed Common Cause on Friday of its decision to drop the wrap ad from publication without explanation.

The Post said it would allow Common Cause to run its similar ad inside the paper, per the organization, but Common Cause declined.

"It's deeply concerning that our ad was censored and rejected without a valid reason," said Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause's president and CEO, and Margaret Huang, Southern Poverty Law Center's president and CEO, in a joint statement. Common Cause planned to pay for the ads in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund.

"We believe this is limiting our freedom of expression at a critical time in our nation's history. This seems to show the Washington Post is feeling pressure to cover the news a certain way," Kase Solomón and Huang said.

The Post declined to comment on its internal decisions about advertising campaigns. Its advertising guidelines state that the Post "accepts all types of advertising and does not decline advertising unless there is a compelling reason to do so," but "nonetheless reserves the right to position, revise, or refuse to publish any advertisement."

The ads are part of a bigger campaign by Common Cause called "Fire Elon Musk," urging people to sign a petition calling for Musk's removal as the head of DOGE. The group says it's collected 60,000 signatures and organized thousands of calls to congressional representatives.

Musk, the world's richest person, runs several companies including X, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Tesla. He's now leading DOGE, the new commission that aims to slash federal spending and cut regulations.

The Post's decision to pull the ad comes just a month after Elon Musk nodded at a friendship with the outlet's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, in a series of X posts. Musk and Bezos own competing companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively, and have exchanged playful jabs for years.

In January posts, Musk and Bezos congratulated each other on their companies' rocket launches, and Musk posted clips from the 2008 comedy "Step Brothers," one of which showed its characters asking, "Did we just become best friends?"

Here are the ads that Common Cause said it planned to run in the Washington Post:

• More than 400 Washington Post staffers are urging Jeff Bezos to meet with the paper's leaders.
• The letter says integrity and transparency issues have caused staff departures.
• The Post has faced subscriber losses and leadership scrutiny under CEO Will Lewis.

More than 400 Washington Post staffers sent a letter to the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos, asking him to intervene after a year of crises.

The letter asked Bezos, who has owned the paper since 2013, to come to the Post and meet with its leaders.

"We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent," the letter says. "This goes far beyond the issue of the presidential endorsement, which we recognize as the owner's prerogative. This is about retaining our competitive edge, restoring trust that has been lost, and reestablishing a relationship with leadership based on open communication."

One newsroom insider called it notable for its representation of nonunion as well as union signatories.

"It ratchets up the pressure," said this person, who, like some others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely about internal matters. Their identity is known to Business Insider.

Since Bezos bought the paper, the Amazon executive chairman has had regular meetings with the business side but largely stayed out of the news coverage.

"From the very beginning, he told us he wouldn't be involved in any way in the newsroom, or be a hands-on owner," the Post insider said. "Our Amazon coverage has been aggressive, and he's never pushed back. I think the plea now is to get him involved now to establish some leadership in the newsroom."

The Post has been battered by a string of recent crises under Will Lewis, its publisher and CEO. NPR reported that the outlet lost a significant number of subscribers after announcing — just days before the US presidential election in November — that it wouldn't endorse a candidate. That decision broke with 40 years of tradition and came after a Kamala Harris endorsement had been planned.

Bezos later explained the decision in an opinion column, saying many people believe the media is biased and presidential endorsements don't help.

A second Post insider, who is familiar with the subscription numbers, said the paper had won back at least 20% of the subscriptions it lost after the endorsement situation. They said nearly three-fourths of those people who canceled are still using the site while their subscriptions remain active.

Since the endorsement controversy, a number of high-profile newsroom figures have defected.

They include a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, who quit after the paper declined to publish her cartoon that portrayed Bezos and other media and tech CEOs sucking up to a statue of President-elect Donald Trump. David Shipley, the Post's opinion editor, said at the time that he rejected the cartoon because the paper had already published a column on the same topic and that another was scheduled for publication.

A third Post insider described a nihilistic feeling at the company amid the talent exodus. They said they felt it would be hard for the paper to move forward under Bezos' ownership in a second Trump administration, given credibility issues with some left-leaning readers.

"A lot of really good institutions are going to have a really hard time in the Trump administration, from higher education to journalism," this person said. "And I think the Post, in part because of our own doing, is one of the first to have its walls shook really, really hard."

Lewis earlier faced scrutiny when he replaced the top editor, Sally Buzbee, last year, and then his choice of replacement backed out. He also faced questions over his actions during the aftermath of a UK phone-hacking scandal.

Not all Post staffers are in agreement with the petition. Another staffer, the sports columnist Sally Jenkins, said the Post's biggest problem is the underlying business challenges facing it and other legacy media.

"I think the Post is in the middle of trying to find solutions, and it takes a lot of time," she said. "Would I love it if Jeff Bezos came to the newsroom? Sure. I just think things are much more complicated than, 'Oh, things will be fine if Jeff Bezos comes in and talks to some editors.'"

Like many other news outlets, the paper has struggled on the revenue side. Last week, it began laying off 4% of staff on the business side, Reuters reported.

Here's the full text of the letter:

To Jeff Bezos:

You recently wrote that ensuring the long-term success and editorial independence of this newspaper is essential. We agree, and we believe you take as much pride in The Washington Post as we do.

We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent. This goes far beyond the issue of the presidential endorsement, which we recognize as the owner's prerogative. This is about retaining our competitive edge, restoring trust that has been lost, and reestablishing a relationship with leadership based on open communication.

We urge you to come to our office and meet with Post leaders, as you have in the past, about what has been happening at The Post. We understand the need for change, and we are eager to deliver the news in innovative ways. But we need a clear vision we can believe in.

We are committed to pursuing independent journalism that holds power to account and to reporting the news without fear or favor. That will never change. Nothing will shake our determination to follow the reporting wherever it leads.

As you wrote when you first became The Post's owner in 2013, "The values of The Post do not need changing." We urge you to stand with us in reaffirming those values.

Signed,

Staffers of The Washington Post

• Companies such as UPS, Meta, Microsoft, BlackRock, and Block are conducting layoffs.
• Artificial intelligence is reshaping some workforces.
• See the list of companies letting workers go in 2025.

Layoffs and other workforce reductions are continuing in 2025, following two years of significant job cuts across tech, media, finance, manufacturing, retail, and energy.

While the reasons for slimming staff vary, the cost-cutting measures are coming amid a backdrop of technological change. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, some 41% of companies worldwide said they expected to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence.

Companies such as CNN, Dropbox, and Block have previously announced job cuts related to AI. Tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are meanwhile expected to double by 2030, according to the WEF.

Here are the companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2025 so far.

Coty is cutting about 700 jobs

Coty, which sells the cosmetics and fragrances under brands including Kylie Cosmetics, Calvin Klein, and Burberry, is cutting about 700 jobs.

The company said on April 24 it aimed to cut costs by $130 million a year. Sue Nabi, the CEO, said it aimed to build a "stronger, more resilient Coty that is well-positioned for sustainable growth."

Adidas plans to cut up to 500 jobs in Germany.

Adidas said in January that it would reduce the size of its workforce at its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, affecting up to 500 jobs, CNBC reported.

If fully executed, it amounts to a reduction of nearly 9% at the company headquarters, which employs about 5,800 employees, according to the Adidas website.

The news came shortly after the company announced it had outperformed its profit expectations at the end of 2024, touting "better-than-expected" results in the fourth quarter.

An Adidas spokesperson said the company had grown "too complex because of our current operating model."

"To set adidas up for long-term success,we are now starting to look at how we align our operating model with the reality of how we work. This may have an impact on the organizational structure and number of roles based at our HQ in Herzogenaurach."

The company said it is not a cost-cutting measure and could not confirm concrete numbers.

Ally is cutting less than 5% of workers.

The digital-financial-services company Ally is laying off roughly 500 of its 11,000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to BI.

"As we continue to right-size our company, we made the difficult decision to selectively reduce our workforce in some areas, while continuing to hire in our other areas of our business," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said the company was offering severance, out-placement support, and the opportunity to apply for openings at Ally.

Ally made a similar level of cuts in October 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Automattic, Tumblr's parent, cuts 16% of staff

Automattic, the parent company of Tumblr and WordPress, said in April it is cutting 16% of its staff globally. The company's website said it has nearly 1,500 employees.

Automattic's CEO, Matt Mullenweg, said in a note to employees posted online that the company has reached an "important crossroads."

"While our revenue continues to grow, Automattic operates in a highly competitive market, and technology is evolving at unprecedented levels," the note read.

"As difficult as this decision has been, the company is restructuring to improve its "productivity, profitability, and capacity to invest," it added.

The company said it was offering severance and job placement resources to affected employees.

BlackRock is cutting 1% of its workforce.

BlackRock told employees it was planning to cut about 200 people of its 21,000-strong workforce, Bloomberg reported in January.

The reductions were more than offset by some 3,750 workers who were added last year and another 2,000 expected to be added in 2025.

BlackRock's president, Rob Kapito, and its chief operating officer, Rob Goldstein, said the cuts would help realign the firm's resources with its strategy, Bloomberg reported.

Block to lay off nearly 1,000 workers

Jack Dorsey's fintech company, Block, is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, according to TechCrunch and The Guardian, in its second major workforce reduction in just over a year.

The company, which operates Square, Afterpay, CashApp, and Tidal, is transitioning nearly 200 managers into non-management roles and closing almost 800 open positions, according to an email obtained by TechCrunch.

Dorsey, who co-founded Block in 2009 after previously leading Twitter, announced the layoffs on Tuesday in an internal email titled "smaller block."

The restructuring is part of a broader effort to streamline operations, though Block maintains the changes are not driven by financial targets or AI replacements.

Blue Origin is laying off one-tenth of its workforce

Jeff Bezos's rocket company, Blue Origin, is laying off about 10% of its workforce, a move that could affect more than 1,000 employees.

In a memo sent to staff in February and obtained by Business Insider, David Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, said the company's priority going forward was "to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness and efficiency for our customers."

Limp specifically identified roles in engineering, research and development, and management as targets.

"We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed," Limp wrote. "It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities."

The news comes after last month's debut launch of the company's partially reusable rocket — New Glenn.

Boeing cut 400 roles from its moon rocket program

Boeing announced on February 8 it plans to cut 400 roles from its moon rocket program amid delays and rising costs related to NASA's Artemis moon exploration missions.

Artemis 2, a crewed flight to orbit the moon on Boeing's space launch system, has been re-scheduled from late 2024 to September 2025. Artemis 3, intended to be the first astronaut moon landing in the program, was delayed from late 2025 and is now planned for September 2026.

"To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025," a Boeing spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are working with our customer and seeking opportunities to redeploy employees across our company to minimize job losses and retain our talented teammates."

The company will issue 60-day notices of involuntary layoff to impacted employees "in coming weeks," the spokesperson said earlier this month.

Boeing cut 10% of its workforce last year.

BP slashed 7,700 staff and contractor positions worldwide.

BP told Business Insider in January that it planned to cut 4,700 staff and 3,000 contractors, amounting to about 5% of its global workforce.

The cuts were part of a program to "simplify and focus" BP that began last year.

"We are strengthening our competitiveness and building in resilience as we lower our costs, drive performance improvement and play to our distinctive capabilities," the company said.

Bridgewater cut about 90 staff.

Bridgewater Associates cut 7% of its staff in January in an effort to stay lean, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

The layoffs at the world's largest hedge fund bring its head count back to where it was in 2023, the person said.

The company's founder, Ray Dalio, said in a 2019 interview that about 30% of new employees were leaving the firm within 18 months.

Chevron is slashing up to 20% of its global headcount

Oil giant Chevron plans to cull 15% to 20% of its global workforce by the end of 2026, the company said in a statement to Business Insider in February.

Chevron employed 45,600 people as of December 2023, which means the layoff could cut 9,000 jobs.

The move aims to reduce costs and simplify the company's business as it completes its acquisition of oil producer Hess, which is held up in legal limbo. It is expected to save the company $2 billion to $3 billion by the end of 2026, the company said.

"Chevron is taking action to simplify our organizational structure, execute faster and more effectively, and position the company for stronger long-term competitiveness," a Chevron spokesperson said in a statement.

The cuts follow a series of layoffs at other oil and gas companies, including BP and natural gas producer EQT.

CNN plans to cut 200 jobs.

Cable news giant CNN cut about 200 television-focused roles as part of a digital pivot. The cuts amounted to about 6% of the company's workforce.

In a memo sent to staff on January 23, CNN's CEO Mark Thompson said he aimed to "shift CNN's gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN's future as one of the world's greatest news organizations."

Estée Lauder will cut as many as 7,000 jobs

Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder said in its second-quarter earnings release on February 4 that it will cut between 5,800 and 7,000 jobs as the company restructures over the next two years.

The cuts will focus on "rightsizing" certain teams, and it will look to outsource certain services. The company says it expects annual gross benefits of between $0.8 billion and $1.0 billion before tax.

GrubHub announced 500 job cuts

Grubhub CEO Howard Migdal announced 500 job cuts on February 28 after selling the company to Wonder Group for $650 million.

With more than 2,200 full time employees, the number of cuts will affect more than 20% of Grubhub's previous workforce.

According to Reuters, Just Eat Takeaway, an Amsterdam-listed company, sold Grubhub at a steep loss compared to the billions it paid a few years prior after grappling with slowing growth and high taxes.

HPE is laying off 2,500 employees

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is cutting 2,500 jobs, or 5% of its employee base, CEO Antonio Neri said on an earnings call on March 6. The cuts are expected take to take place over the next 12 to 18 months.

"Doing so will better align our cost structure to our business mix and long-term strategy," Neri said. The company expects to save $350 million by 2027 because of the reduction.

HPE plummeted about 20% after hours on March 6 after it said business would be affected by recent tariffs, slow server and cloud sales, and "execution issues."

Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University will cut over 2,000 jobs after losing $800 million in funding from USAID.

"This is a difficult day for our entire community," a spokesperson told BI. "The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally."

The news comes after the Trump administration slashed USAID personnel down from over 10,000 to around 300. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently confirmed that 83% of the agency's programs are now dead.

"We can confirm that the elimination of foreign aid funding has led to the loss of 1,975 positions in 44 countries internationally and 247 in the United States in the affected programs," the Johns Hopkins spokesperson said. "An additional 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed with a reduced schedule."

The layoffs at Johns Hopkins represent the "largest" in the university's history, CNN reported. They'll primarily affect the schools of medicine and public health, along with the Center for Communication Programs and Jhpiego, a nonprofit with a focus on preventing diseases and bolstering women's health, according to the report.

Kohl's is reducing about 10% of its roles

Department store Kohl's announced on January 28 that it reduced about 10% of its corporate roles to "increase efficiencies" and "improve profitability for the long-term health and benefit of the business," a spokesperson told BI.

"Kohl's reduced approximately 10 percent of the roles that report into its corporate offices," the spokesperson said. "More than half of the total reduction will come from closing open positions while the remainder of the positions were currently held by our associates."

Less than 200 existing employees of the company would be impacted, she added.

This follows the company's announcement on January 9 that it would shutter 27 underperforming stores across 15 states by April.

The retailer has been struggling with declining sales, reporting an 8.8% decline in net sales in the third quarter of 2024.

Its previous CEO, Tom Kingsbury, stepped down on January 15. The company's board appointed Ashley Buchanan, a retail veteran who had held top jobs in The Michaels Companies, Macy's, and Walmart, as the new CEO.

Meta is cutting 5% of its workforce.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff he "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and will act quickly to "move out low-performers," according to an internal memo seen by BI in January.

Those cuts started in February, according to records obtained by BI. Teams overseeing Facebook, the Horizon virtual reality platform, as well as logistics were among the hardest hit.

In April, Meta also laid off an undisclosed number of employees on the Reality Labs virtual reality division.

Previously, the company had laid off more than 21,000 workers since 2022.

Microchip Technology is slashing 2,000 jobs

Microchip Technology is cutting its head count across the company by around 2,000 employees, the semiconductor company said on March 3.

The company estimated that it would incur between $30 million and $40 million in costs, including severance, severance benefits, and other restructuring costs.

The cuts would be communicated to employees in the March quarter and fully implemented by the end of the June quarter.

Last year, Microchip announced it was closing its Tempe, Arizona, facility because of slower-than-anticipated orders. The closure begins in May 2025 and is expected to affect 500 jobs.

Microchip's stock had fallen over 33% in the past year.

Microsoft made performance-based job cuts in January

Microsoft cut an unspecified number of jobs in January based on employees' performance.

Workers were told that they wouldn't receive severance and that their benefits, such as medical insurance, would stop immediately, BI reported.

The company also laid off some employees in January at divisions including gaming and sales. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to say how many jobs were cut on the affected teams.

Morgan Stanley plans cuts for the end of March

Morgan Stanley is set to initiate a round of layoffs beginning at the end of March. The firm is eyeing cuts to about 2% to 3% of its global workforce, which would equate to between 1,600 to 2,400 jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter who confirmed the reductions to BI.

The firm's cuts are driven by several imperatives, the person said, pointing to considerations like operational efficiency, evolving business priorities, and individual employees' performance. The person said the cuts are not related to broader market conditions, such as the recent slowdown in mergers and acquisitions that's arrested momentum on Wall Street.

Some MS staffers will be excluded from the cuts, however — namely, the bank's battalion of financial advisors — though some who assist them, such as administrative personnel in its wealth-management unit, could be affected by the layoffs, the person added.

Porsche is cutting 3,900 jobs over the next few years

Porsche said on March 12 that it plans to cut 3,900 jobs in the coming years.

About 2,000 of the reductions will come with the expiration of fixed-term contractor positions, the German automaker said Wednesday. The company will make the other 1,900 reductions by 2029 through natural attrition and limiting hiring, it said.

Porsche said it also plans to discuss more potential changes with labor leaders in the second half of the year. "This will also make Porsche even more efficient in the medium and long term," the company said.

Salesforce is cutting more than 1,000 jobs

Bloomberg reported in February that Salesforce, a cloud-based customer management software company, will slash more than 1,000 jobs from its nearly 73,000-strong workforce.

Affected employees will be eligible to apply to open internal roles, the outlet reported. The company is hiring salespeople focused on the company's new AI-powered products.

The cuts come despite Salesforce reporting a strong financial performance during its third-quarter earnings in December.

Salesforce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sonos cuts about 200 jobs

Sonos, a California-based audio equipment company, said in a February 5 release that it's cutting about 200 roles.

The announcement came nearly a month after Sonos CEO Patrick Spence stepped down from his position following a disastrous app rollout. The company's interim CEO Tom Conrad said in the statement that the layoff was part of an effort to create a "simpler organization."

"One thing I've observed firsthand is that we've become mired in too many layers that have made collaboration and decision-making harder than it needs to be," Conrad said. "So across the company today we are reorganizing into flatter, smaller, and more focused teams."

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan announced in February that the company is laying off 15% of its corporate staff, or about 1,750 employees.

He said impacted workers will keep their pay, benefits, and bonuses through late April, when the separations will take effect.

The company told investors the cuts would provide a "partial year 2025 savings to be approximately $210 million and full-year 2026 savings to be approximately $300 million."

The move comes as Southwest tries to cut costs amid profitability problems. Jordan said this is the first significant layoff the company has had in its 53-year history.

An activist hedge fund took a stake in Southwest in June and has since helped restructure its board and change its business model to keep up with a changing industry. For example, it plans to end its long-standing open-seating policy to generate more seating revenue.

In recent months, the company has also reduced flight crew positions in Atlanta to cut costs.

Starbucks is laying off 1,100 corporate staff

Starbucks will notify 1,100 corporate employees that they have been laid off on February 25.

CEO Brian Niccol said in a memo that the layoffs will make Starbucks "operate more efficiently, increase accountability, reduce complexity and drive better integration."

The layoffs won't affect employees at Starbucks stores, the company said.

Niccol told employees that layoffs were on the way in a separate memo in January. The company is trying to improve results after sales slid last year.

Workday cut more than 8% of its workforce

Workday, the human-resources software company, said in February that it is cutting 8.5% of its workforce, or around 1,750 employees. The layoffs came as the company focuses more on artificial intelligence.

In a note to employees, CEO Carl Eschenbach said that Workday will focus on hiring in areas related to artificial intelligence and work to expand its global presence.

"The environment we're operating in today demands a new approach, particularly given our size and scale," Eschenbach wrote. He said that affected employees will get at least 12 weeks of pay.

Stripe laid off 300 employees

Payments platform Stripe laid off 300 employees, primarily in product, engineering, and operations, according to a January 20 memo obtained by BI.

Chief People Officer Rob McIntosh said in the memo that the company still planned on growing its head count to about 10,000 employees by the end of the year.

The Washington Post cut 4% of its non-newsroom workforce

The Washington Post eliminated less than 100 employees in an effort to cut costs, Reuters reported in January.

A spokesperson told the wire service that the changes would occur across multiple areas of the business and indicated that the cuts wouldn't affect the newsroom.

"The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are," the spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

UPS is cutting 20,000 jobs

UPS announced on April 29 that it plans to cut 20,000 jobs this year — about 4% of its global workforce — as part of a shift toward automation and a strategic reduction in business with Amazon.

"With our action, we will emerge as an even stronger, more nimble UPS," the company's CEO, Carol Tomé, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The move follows a sharp 16% drop in Amazon package volume last quarter and is part of a plan to halve its Amazon business by mid-2026. UPS will also close 73 US buildings by June and automate 400 facilities to reduce labor dependency.

The Teamsters union have said they would fight any layoffs affecting its members.

Wayfair laid off 340 tech employees

Wayfair announced in an SEC filing on March 7 that it would eliminate its Austin Technology Development Center and lay off around 340 tech workers.

The reorg comes as the technology team has accomplished "significant modernization and replatforming milestones," the company said in the filing. Wayfair said it plans to refocus resources and streamline operations to promote its "next phase of growth."

"With the foundation of this transformation now in place, our technology needs have shifted," the company said.

Wayfair expects to take on $33 to $38 million in costs as a result of the reorganization, consisting of severance, cash employee-related costs, benefits, and transitional costs.

Geico has axed tens of thousands of workers

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chair of Insurance Operations Ajit Jain says Geico has reduced its workforce from about 50,000 to about 20,000. Jain revealed the reductions during Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on May 3 but did not detail over what time frame they took place. Berkshire Hathaway is one of Geico's parent companies.

Warren Buffett's company reported its 2025 first-quarter earnings on during the May 3 meeting, saying Geico earned nearly $2.2 billion in pre-tax underwriting.

PwC is laying off approximately 2% of its US workforce

The Big Four accounting firm said it's cutting roughly 1,500 jobs in the US because its low attrition rates mean not enough people are leaving by choice.

PwC's layoffs began on May 5 and mostly affect the firm's audit and tax lines, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

"This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness, and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step," a PwC spokesperson said.

CrowdStrike is cutting about 500 jobs

CrowdStrike, the Texas-headquartered cybersecurity firm, is cutting about 500 jobs, or 5% of its global workforce, as part of a strategic plan to "yield greater efficiencies."

It expects the layoffs to cost between $36 million and $53 million.

CrowdStrike is aiming to generate $10 billion in annual recurring revenue.

The company reported worse-than-expected annual results in March, signaling that it was yet to fully recover from a widespread tech outage linked to CrowdStrike in July 2024.

Panasonic is cutting 10,000 jobs

Panasonic, the Japanese-headquartered multinational electronics manufacturer, plans to cut 10,000 jobs this financial year, which ends in March 2026. The cuts will affect 5,000 roles in Japan and 5,000 overseas.

In a statement on Friday, May 9, the company said it planned to "thoroughly review operational efficiency … mainly in sales and indirect departments, and reevaluate the numbers of organisations and personnel actually needed."

"Through these measures, the company will optimize our personnel on a global scale," the statement added.

Nissan says it will cut 20,000 jobs by 2027

Japanese car giant Nissan is cutting 20,000 jobs by 2027 and reducing the number of factories it operates from 17 to 10 as it struggles with a dire financial situation.

The job losses include the 9,000 layoffs announced late last year, and come as the automaker faces headwinds from US tariffs on imported vehicles and collapsing sales in China.

Nissan reported a net loss of 671 billion yen ($4.5 billion) for the 2024 financial year, and said it would not issue an operating profit forecast for 2025 because of tariff uncertainty.

Burberry says it plans on cutting 1,700 jobs

Burberry announced 1,700 job cuts in May, or about 18% of its global workforce, as part of plans to cut costs by about £100 million ($130 million) by 2027.

It plans to end night shifts at its Yorkshire raincoat factory due to production over-capacity.

The British company sunk to an operating loss of £3 million for the year to the end of March, compared with a £418 million profit for the previous 12 months.

Is your company conducting layoffs? Got a tip?

If you're an employee with a tip about coming job cuts, contact Dominick Reuter via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• Ann Telnaes, a longtime Washington Post cartoonist, has announced she is quitting her position.
• She said the move came after a cartoon featuring the Post's owner, Jeff Bezos, was rejected.
• The Post's opinion editor said he disagreed "with her interpretation of events."

Ann Telnaes, an editorial cartoonist who has worked for The Washington Post since 2008, announced she was quitting her position after one of her cartoons was rejected.

The cartoon in question depicted Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other billionaires kneeling in front of a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.

In a Substack post, Telnaes wrote that the idea behind the cartoon was to criticize billionaire tech and media chief executives she said "have been doing their best to curry favor" with Trump.

Alongside Bezos, the cartoon shows Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Walt Disney mascot Mickey Mouse.

"I've never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now," Telnaes wrote, adding that the paper's decision to kill the cartoon was "a game changer…and dangerous for a free press."

"As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable," she continued. "For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post."

The Post's opinions editor, David Shipley, said in a statement that while he respected Telnaes and her work for the publication, he "must disagree with her interpretation of events."

"Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force," he said. "My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition."

Jeff Stein, a White House economics reporter at the Post, reshared the cartoon and a link to Telnaes' Substack post on X.

Telnaes, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 2001, has long been an advocate for free speech and editorial cartoons as a tool for civic debate.

She serves on the advisory board for the Geneva-based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation and was formerly a board member of Cartoonists Rights.

Telnaes concluded her Substack post by quoting the Post's slogan: "Democracy Dies in Darkness."

Jeff Bezos has owned The Washington Post since 2013, when his holding company, Nash Holdings, bought the newspaper for $250 million.

Business Insider has contacted Telnaes and Shipley for comment.

• Jeff Bezos prefers "messy" meetings to rehearsed ones for genuine discussions.
• Bezos emphasized seeking truth in meetings, not polished pitches or presentations.
• His ideal meetings include six-page memos, a study period, and open, messy discussions.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos prefers "messy" meetings to ones that team members have rehearsed, he told The New York Times DealBook Summit last week.

The world's second-richest person and owner of the Washington Post said his approach to internal meetings is to not finish them until he feels that everything has been discussed.

"Messy is good," Bezos told The New York Times.

Bezos explained that most of the meetings he considers useful have six-page memos, a 30-minute "study hall" period to read them, and then a messy discussion.

"I like the memos to be like angels singing from on high, so clear and beautiful," he said. "And then the meeting can be messy."

Bezos said that internal presentations should be about seeking the truth — not pitches to him or any senior executive.

"You don't want the whole thing to be figured out and presented to you," he said, adding that he would prefer to be part of the "sausage-making" process.

"I'm very skeptical if the meeting's not messy," he said.

"Show me the ugly bits. I always ask, are there any dissenting opinions on the team? I want to try to get to the controversy," Bezos said.

"Let's make this meeting messy. Help me make it messy."

Bezos is well known for his strong views about how meetings should be run, particularly what has become known "two-pizza rule," where a meeting is limited to the number of people that could be fed with two large pizzas. He also dislikes the use of PowerPoints in company meetings.

• Some journalists are leaving their jobs and starting one-person subscription businesses.
• Jason Koebler and three other veterans of Vice Media wanted to build something bigger: an actual news site.
• They launched 404 Media in the summer of 2023. Today, it looks like a sustainable success story.

Lots of people dream of quitting their jobs and going into business for themselves. Jason Koebler and three co-workers actually did it. It looks like it's working.

In the summer of 2023, Koebler, who used to edit Vice Media's Motherboard tech section, and three former Vice co-workers launched 404 Media, a tech news site they co-own. Each of them kicked in $1,000 to get it off the ground.

Fast-forward to today, and Koebler says the company is already generating something in the $900,000-a-year range, funded almost entirely with subscriptions. Even after tech and legal costs, that's enough to call 404 a success. And that allows them to write whatever they want: Like this recent piece looking at Elon Musk and Twitter/X's involvement in the Alex Jones bankruptcy case.

This self-funded business model isn't going to work for everyone and everything. But in a grim climate for media in general and journalism specifically, it's great to hear about things that work. You can hear the entire conversation I had with Koebler on my Channels podcast; what follows are edited excerpts from our chat.

It seems like you guys are making a real business here: You can pay the four of yourselves grown-up journalism salaries.

We are. It's going better than I could have ever imagined. We're also at a point where I think we'll be able to bring new employees on.

When you launched, what did you think you'd need to do, at minimum, to keep this afloat? Did you think about a scenario where it's working, but you needed to have side gigs?

When we decided to do this, we launched in August 2023, and we told ourselves that we would do it until January.

And right after we launched, in the first couple of days, we got like 600 subscribers. We fell into this kind of middle ground — enough people signed up that there was clearly an audience, but not enough signed up where [we knew this was] definitely going to work.

It was unclear whether it was going to survive, even though the response was amazing.

But then the really cool thing was every time we had a big scoop or a big story, we got new subscribers.

Your structure is egalitarian. I'm assuming you're all getting paid equally.

We're all the same. We're all 25% owners. The management of the company has been easier than I thought that it would be. I think that if we were to grow, we would probably have to figure out how to manage new hires, and what ownership would look like then.

What happens when you guys have a throw-down and then the vote is two vs. two?

There are no votes. We told each other from the outset that anyone can veto anything. So, if any one person is like "I hate this idea," then we just don't do it.

I wanted to ask you about this great piece you wrote recently: "The Billionaire Is the Threat, not the Solution." It's a personal story about your dad who worked on the printing presses of The Washington Post for decades. And about Jeff Bezos and the non-endorsement story. Your argument is that you're going to continue to have these problems as long as you're looking for billionaires to own your media.

I agree with you. I don't think we can rely on billionaires to fund our media. And this model that you've built works for you and your three coworkers and co-owners. But it can't work for everything. What kind of journalism does your model support? What does it not support?

This sort of subscription, independent model works for us. We've created four journalism jobs. Other independent media companies have created a few dozen more. But it's still like a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket.

My theory is that there can be a lot of them. I really do think that. 7,000 people have subscribed to us. The market can support a lot more of these.

But what are the kinds of stories and projects you can't do because you don't have apparatus, staff, whatever?

I think that there's the "spend three, six, 12 months on an investigative story and then publish it and maybe it wins an award and tons of people read it — or maybe no one reads it" is a model we're not even trying to do. I think that's an important model and maybe one better suited for nonprofits and The New York Times and Washington Post.

I think the reason that it's working for us is we are breaking stories, we are telling stories, that you can't find elsewhere.