The daily business briefing: December 10, 2019

Amazon files complaint accusing Trump of improperly blocking cloud contract, former Fed Chair Paul Volcker dies, and more 

Jeff Bezos
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

1. Amazon accuses Trump of steering cloud contract to Microsoft

Amazon on Monday filed a complaint accusing President Trump of putting "improper pressure" on the Pentagon to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract to rival Microsoft. Amazon said in the complaint that Trump made "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer" the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract away from Amazon Web Services. The online retail giant said Trump wanted to "harm his perceived political enemy Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and CEO of AWS's parent company, Amazon.com ... and owner of The Washington Post." Trump has accused Amazon of paying too little in taxes and using the Post to spread "fake news" about Trump. The complaint said: "The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends."

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.