Jeff Bezos EATS during historic antitrust hearing with tech giants that’s plagued by…TECH issues
AMAZON boss Jeff Bezos was caught eating during Wednesday’s historic anti-trust hearing.
The billionaire gobbled a snack he appeared remotely before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law.
Journalist Claire Reilly captured the moment, sharing a GIF of a hungry Bezos on Twitter.
Bezos reaching for food – strikingly at odds with the formality of the proceedings – came after the Amazon CEO was plagued by tech issues.
His feed dropped out for more than 10 minutes, forcing the hearing to be paused until his connection could be restored.
The Amazon founder, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc – Google‘s parent company – and Apple‘s Tim Cook were all sworn in to address lawmakers at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC.
Bezos launched into his testimony first shortly after 1.30 pm, followed by Pichai, Cook, and Zuckerberg.
It was Bezos’ first time appearing before Congress, and he introduced himself in a way unusual for the occasion.
He laid out his challenging life story, growing up in New Mexico as the son of a single mother in high school, and later with an adoptive father who emigrated from Cuba at 16.
In a blog post previewing his testimony, Bezos traced his origins as a “garage inventor” who came up with the concept of an online bookstore in 1994.
He addressed the issue of Amazon’s power in what he describes as a huge and competitive global retail market.
The company accounts for less than 4% of retail in the US, Bezos said.
He affirmed his rebuff to critics who call for the company to be broken up: Walmart is more than twice Amazon’s size, he claimed.
He also faced questioning over a Wall Street Journal report that found Amazon employees used confidential data collected from sellers on its online marketplace to develop competing products.
At a previous hearing, an Amazon executive denied such accusations.
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President Donald Trump, meanwhile, continued to denounce the big tech companies, which he has accused, without evidence, of bias against him and conservatives in general.
In a tweet, he challenged Congress to crack down on the companies.
“If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders,” Trump tweeted before the start of the hearing.
“In Washington, it has been ALL TALK and NO ACTION for years, and the people of our Country are sick and tired of it!”