Amazon's Jassy blitzes Congress over antitrust bill

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy has been directly calling senators to urge them to oppose an antitrust bill that could significantly rein in the tech giants, marking an escalation in the big tech companies' ferocious lobbying against the legislation.

The tech executive has called multiple senators in recent weeks to lobby against the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), according to three people familiar with the outreach. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The bill would bar giant tech companies like Amazon from favoring their own products over those of their rivals. It would force Amazon to stop, for example, promoting its own private-label products at the top of searches on its e-commerce site.

Jassy even reached out recently to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — though the call may not have gone as he hoped.

“Sen. Schumer took Mr. Jassy’s call and told him that he supports Sen. Klobuchar’s bill,” a Schumer spokesperson said. An Amazon spokesperson said, "Andy meets with policymakers on both sides of the aisle regarding policy issues that could affect our customers."

And Jassy isn’t the only tech executive working to wield his star power against the bill as the tech companies pull out all the stops to crush the legislation, which could go to a vote in the Senate as soon as next month.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is planning to meet in person with senators on Capitol Hill next week to discuss the antitrust bill (among other things), said one Capitol Hill aide familiar with the discussions. The meetings follow calls Pichai made to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of the bill's markup in January. A Google spokesperson did not comment directly on the meetings.

"We regularly engage with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on a range of issues including economic growth, small business support, immigration reform and cybersecurity," said Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels.

The ban on so-called self-preferencing would also bar Google from giving its own services, such as Google Maps and reviews, greatest priority at the top of its search results page. And it would prevent Apple from preloading its own apps onto iPhones.

Apple CEO Tim Cook met with senators last week, including several Democrats and a group of Republicans, to discuss Apple’s opposition to the antitrust bills (again, among other things). A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the Kentucky Republican did not meet with Cook, and declined to comment when asked if he spoke with Jassy.

And it’s not just CEOs — Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, has also spoken directly with multiple members of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Klobuchar and Grassley's bill.

Jassy’s outreach is also a sign that he is approaching Washington differently than his predecessor, Jeff Bezos — who rarely directly interacted with members of Congress during his time at Amazon's helm. When Jassy took over last July, he quickly made the rounds on Capitol Hill.

“Tech lobbying has been crude and over the top,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said. The senator said she hasn’t received a call from Jassy or other top tech executives, but has been tracking their extensive efforts to block the antitrust bills. “That’s the way giant corporations with unlimited money and, they believe, unlimited power seem to act,” she said.

Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.

A version of this story first appeared in Morning Tech, POLITICO Pro's subscriber-only tech policy newsletter. You can subscribe to POLITICO Pro here.