Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box that if he does his “job right, value to society and civilization from my for-profit companies will be much, much larger than the good that I do with my charitable giving.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk agreed to this controversial statement on X, writing “True,” in response.
Bezos made a number of other attention-grabbing statements in the interview. He dismissed concerns about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble, saying that the wave of spending flowing into the sector will produce lasting benefits regardless of how valuations shake out.
“Even if it does turn out to be a bubble, you shouldn’t worry about it because the bubble is driving investment and a lot of the investment is going to turn out to be very healthy,” he told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.
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Bezos said that the AI boom has created conditions where “every experiment is getting funded,” extending to ventures that may ultimately prove unworthy of the capital. He attributed this to investors not yet having developed the ability to tell strong ideas from weak ones, but said that outcome was acceptable.
“It’s because investors at this moment haven’t learned yet how to discriminate between good ideas and bad ideas, and that’s OK, because the good ideas will pay for all of the losers,” he said.
Bezos also said that the bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes. The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, he said, adding “I don’t think it should be 3%, […] I think it should be zero.”
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government.”
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“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
Bezos, who is the world’s fourth-richest person, said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos also praised President Donald Trump’s performance during his second term. “I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term,” Bezos said. This comes as the president is facing record-low approval among voters.
“Trump has lots of good ideas,” Bezos added. “He’s been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.”