Amazon Inc CEO Jeff Bezos slammed President Joe Biden on Saturday over a tweet suggesting that gas station operators should decrease their selling price closer to cost price.
“My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril,” Biden wrote Saturday on Twitter.
“Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now,” Biden said on his post.
Bezos criticized Biden for the tweet within hours. “Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this,” the billionaire wrote.
Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this. It’s either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics. https://t.co/XgKfEICZpk
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) July 3, 2022
“It’s either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics,” he added.
Other Twitter users joined Bezos in slamming Biden, including Republican U.S. House Candidate Omar Navarro of California, who wrote, “Dude we are not a communist country.”
“I keep thinking about this tweet and am continually baffled,” RealClearInvestigations senior writer Mark Hemmingway wrote. “When things are so obviously bad, ‘we feel your pain and we’re doing our best’ is much better political messaging than ‘we’re in denial about how this is happening so let’s blame others.’”
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Biden, however, received support for his Twitter post from a surprising source —Chinese state-affiliated media.
“Now U.S. President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation. He didn’t believe this before,” Editor-in-Chief for the Chinese state-run China Daily newspaper Chen Weihua wrote.
Chen also shared a screenshot of a previous tweet where he responded to Biden saying “capitalism without competition” is “exploitation” by writing, “Capitalism is all about exploitation. Period.”
Biden’s Saturday post on Twitter was not the president’s first attempt to blame others for an economic crisis aggravated by his administration’s mishandling of the nation’s macroeconomy.
As the nation experiences record-high inflation and soaring gas prices, Biden has scapegoated Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and big corporations for the country’s economic woes.
Biden’s Saturday tweet came as the national average price for gas stood at $4.812, according to the AAA.
Bezos has previously criticized Biden on Twitter for blame-shifting on economic issues. In May, the billionaire slammed Biden for blaming large corporations for the financial troubles by saying they were not paying their supposed fair share.
Bezos wrote, “they understandably want to muddy the topic. They know inflation hurts the neediest the most. But unions aren’t causing inflation and neither are wealthy people.”
their best to add another $3.5 TRILLION to federal spending. They failed, but if they had succeeded, inflation would be even higher than it is today, and inflation today is at a 40 year high.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) May 16, 2022
“Remember the Administration tried their best to add another $3.5 TRILLION to federal spending. They failed, but if they had succeeded, inflation would be even higher than it is today, and inflation today is at a 40 year high,” Bezos added.
