Trump: Amazon Does 'Great Damage' to Retailers
President Donald Trump on Wednesday, once again, took aim at Amazon.
In a tweet, the president said "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!" He did not give any further explanation.
This isn't the first time Trump has targeted the online retail giant, whose CEO Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, which the president has called "a big tax shelter" for Amazon.
Amazon did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.
Despite Trump's claims, Amazon says it collects state sales taxes in 45 US states and Washington, D.C. On the topic of jobs, Amazon is one of the country's biggest employers with 180,000 US employees as of last year, up from 30,000 people in 2011.
Amazon in January pledged to create more than 100,000 new jobs across the US by mid-2018. The positions will be full time with benefits like health insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plans, and company stock. When it's all said and done, that initiative will grow Amazon's US-based workforce to more than 280,000.
'Thank You, All!'
Meanwhile, Trump also today tweeted that he's ending two of his CEO councils. "Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!" Trump tweeted today.
That, however, came after reports that CEOs on his Strategic and Policy Forum had gathered on a call earlier today and decided to "abandon the group altogether" in response to Trump's inflammatory Tuesday statements on white supremacists, the New York Times reports. The council previously included Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick, both of whom quit earlier this year over climate change and the travel ban, respectively.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich exited the Manufacturing Council this week, also over Trump's response to Charlottesville. The CEOs of Merck and Under Armour did the same.
Just yesterday, Trump tweeted that "For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place."
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
