Jeff Bezos appeared live on CNBC's Squawk Box on Wednesday, May 20, sitting down with anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Blue Origin Rocket Factory in Merritt Island, Florida.
Over the course of the interview, the Amazon founder and executive chairman addressed artificial intelligence, job losses, his new AI startup Project Prometheus, federal taxes, President Trump, the Washington Post, and his plans for his $269 billion fortune.
Here is every major thing he said.
/1. He Said the AI Bubble Is Nothing to Fear
Bezos dismissed concerns about an AI investment crash, telling Sorkin directly: "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 compared the current moment to the 1990s biotech bubble, saying that investors lost money when it burst but the world still kept all the life-saving drugs invented during the frenzy. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are collectively on track to spend more than $700 billion on AI infrastructure this year, according to CNBC.
/2. He Said People Who Fear AI Job Losses Are "Dead Wrong"
When Sorkin raised fears around AI eliminating jobs, Bezos was direct: "Those people are dead wrong." He told Sorkin that work will simply move to a higher level, describing the shift as the difference between working with "a bulldozer instead of a shovel." Bezos argued that humans will never run out of problems to solve and that AI will raise the quality of work rather than remove the need for it.
/3. He Revealed What His $6.2 Billion AI Startup Is Actually Building
Bezos corrected Sorkin on air when asked whether Project Prometheus was an AI robotics company. "We have nothing to do with robotics. What we are doing is we're building an artificial general engineer." The startup, co-led by Bezos and former Google X executive Vik Bajaj, launched in November 2025 with $6.2 billion in funding. Bezos confirmed that virtually all of his working time across Amazon, Blue Origin, and Project Prometheus is now centred on AI, but said it was too early to share further details publicly.
/4. He Called for Zero Income Tax on the Bottom Half of Earners — and Said Doubling His Own Tax Bill Would Not Help Anyone
Bezos told Sorkin that the top 1 percent of taxpayers currently pay 40 percent of all federal tax revenue while the bottom half of earners pay just 3 percent. "I think it should be zero," he said. "We shouldn't be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense."
When Sorkin pressed him on whether he himself should pay higher taxes to cover the gap, Bezos replied: "You could double the taxes I pay, and it's not gonna help that teacher in Queens. I promise you." He also pushed back on the "buy, borrow, die" tax strategy that critics say ultra-wealthy founders use to avoid paying income tax, calling it a claim with "no truth" to it and saying he pays taxes on every Amazon stock sale he makes.
/5. He Called Trump "More Mature and More Disciplined" Than His First Term
Sorkin asked Bezos directly about his view of President Trump's second term, noting that wars, tariffs, and major political events had unfolded since the two last spoke. Bezos replied: "I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas. He's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due." Bezos made clear he was comparing Trump to his first term rather than offering a blanket endorsement of every policy decision taken since January 2025.
/6. He Confirmed He Will Give Away Most of His $269 Billion Fortune and Said the Washington Post Cannot Be a Charity
Bezos told Sorkin he intends to give away most of his wealth during his lifetime, though he did not outline a specific timeline or mechanism for doing so. On the Washington Post, which he has owned since 2013, he was equally direct about his expectations: "I don't want it to be a charity." Bezos is currently the world's fourth-richest person, with a net worth of approximately $269 billion according to Forbes.
Damilare Odedina
