One of President Donald Trump's corporate allies sparked a firestorm on Thursday after his plans to lead a robot revolution in manufacturing were revealed.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon's Jeff Bezos is in talks to raise $100 billion to acquire manufacturing businesses and automate them with artificial intelligence. The report was published at a time when economic experts at the Federal Reserve had expressed concerns about the "almost zero" job growth over the previous year.
"The Amazon.com founder is meeting with some of the world’s largest asset managers to raise funding for the project," the report reads in part. "A few months ago, he traveled to the Middle East to discuss the new fund with sovereign wealth representatives in the region. More recently, he went to Singapore to raise funding for the effort as well, according to people familiar with the matter."
Political analysts and observers reacted to the report on social media.
"Jobs? What jobs?" military veteran John Jackson posted on X.
"Very curious what he means by AI or if he even knows," journalist Daniel Willis posted on Bluesky. "Because I’m not sure how a language simulator would automate manufacturing? Or if he just means machine learning, what there even is to automate beyond the programming we already give the robots who have done most of the work for decades?"
"The Epstein class is literally trying to take everyone's job and leave people to suffer and die with absolutely nothing," podcaster Kyle Kulinski posted on X. "Billionaires are a national security threat and need to be dealt with accordingly."
"This is the future people like @matthewstoller and @SohrabAhmari see for reshoring U.S. manufacturing," Derek Guy, editor at Put This On, posted on X. "It's reshoring in name only, as it does not create good-paying jobs for regular people."