MERRITT ISLAND, Fla., May 20, 2026 — Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos forcefully denied Wednesday that he was involved in any deal to produce a documentary about first lady Melania Trump, calling the widely reported narrative a “falsehood that will not die” and insisting he had “nothing to do” with the film.
“The Melania thing is a falsehood that will not die,” Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an exclusive interview from the Blue Origin rocket factory in Merritt Island, Florida. “I had nothing to do with that.”
The Claim He Is Denying
The documentary in question is Melania, an Amazon MGM Studios production released in theaters in October 2024 and subsequently made available on Prime Video. The film, directed by Brett Ratner, was widely reported to have been greenlit following a dinner between Bezos and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago — with critics arguing the $40 million project represented an effort by Bezos to curry favor with Trump ahead of his return to the White House.
Bezos rejected every element of that account. “I see reported all the time that somehow I was involved in this — and I know, ‘we did this at this Mar-a-Lago dinner,'” he said. “Everybody thinks that I went to Mar-a-Lago. It’s not true. We have denied it. Melania’s office has denied it. It’s not true.”
Sorkin confirmed that the denial had been made before. Bezos replied: “It’s a falsehood that will not die.”
His Defense: It Was a Business Decision He Didn’t Make
Bezos drew a sharp distinction between himself and Amazon’s content team, arguing that Amazon is a large company that makes thousands of decisions without his personal involvement. He said the Melania documentary was one of them.
“By the way, it appears it was a good business decision,” he said. “It did very well in theaters. It’s done very well on streaming. People are very curious about Melania.” He then undercut his own authority over Amazon’s content slate with a self-deprecating comparison: “I also had nothing to do with ‘Project Hail Mary,’ which I regret because it’s an incredible success. I wish I had greenlit that. But I didn’t.”
Project Hail Mary, an Amazon MGM Studios adaptation of the Andy Weir novel starring Ryan Gosling, became one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2025. Bezos used the comparison to argue that his non-involvement in the Melania documentary was not exceptional — simply how a large company operates.
“Amazon’s a big company and makes a lot of decisions,” he said. “But no — this idea that somehow that is a way of buying influence is just not correct.”
The Broader Influence Question
The Melania documentary denial was Bezos’s most pointed response to Sorkin’s broader line of questioning: whether Bezos has systematically sought to improve his relationship with Trump as a matter of protecting his business interests. Sorkin listed several data points — the $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural fund, the attendance at the January 2025 inauguration in “billionaire row,” the shift in editorial tone at The Washington Post — as evidence of a pattern.
Bezos acknowledged the inauguration attendance but denied the broader characterization. On The Washington Post, he said he wants the paper’s opinion section to stand for “free markets and individual personal liberties” — framing that as a consistent philosophy rather than a response to Trump. “I can see why people say this,” he said of the influence accusations. “But it’s just not correct.”
He then sought to reframe his relationship with Trump as one element of a nonpartisan approach to every president. “I was helping Obama every chance I could. I was helping Biden every chance I could. I still call Obama for advice,” Bezos said. “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.”
“I’m on the side of America,” he added. “And that’s where business leaders should be.”
By
By
