Jeff Bezos joins chorus of CEOs challenging Trump travel ban
WASHINGTON - Amazon (AMZN) founder and CEO Jeff Bezos says the Seattle-based company is prepared to support a lawsuit being brought by Washington state’s attorney general against President Donald Trump and the administration over Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees.
The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, reports Bezos wrote in an internal email to Amazon employees Monday that company lawyers have prepared a “declaration of support” for the suit. The Post reports the letter says company lawyers “are working other legal options as well.”
Fellow Washington state-based tech companies Microsoft (MSFT) and Expedia are also supporting the suit.
The lawsuit filed Monday says the restrictions on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries is damaging Washington state’s economy and hurting its companies.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
A number of high-profile chief executives have raised questions about the Trump administration’s travel ban. That includes Apple’s (AAPL) Tim Cook, Facebook’s (FB) Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Netflix’s (NFLX) Reed Hastings. Technology companies use many foreign holders of H1-b visas, a labor practice Mr. Trump has proposed restricting.
Outside of the tech industry, Starbucks (SBUX) chief Howard Schultz on Monday said the coffee chain would hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years. And in a memo to his staff, Nike Chief Executive Mark Parker denounced Mr. Trump’s move as a threat to the apparel maker’s values, according to The Oregonian newspaper.
The CEOs of Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Ford (F) and Nike (NKE) also spoke out against the ban, as did General Electric (GE) CEO Jeffrey Immelt.