Jeff Bezos defended Amazon's $40M acquisition of the Melania Trump documentary as “a good business decision” during a CNBC interview this week while denying any personal involvement in the deal, calling reports that he engineered the purchase “a falsehood that will not die.” Amazon paid $40M for the film (with Melania reportedly making $28M) and spent about $35M on marketing, but the movie made just $16.7M worldwide, failing to recoup its budget, while no public data has been released on streaming performance despite Bezos claiming it has “done very well on streaming.” Senator Elizabeth Warren previously criticized the deal as “an apparent pay-to-play arrangement with the Trump administration” raising questions about Amazon's exposure under federal anti-bribery law.
