Bezos slams Biden over call for lowering of petrol prices

AMAZON.COM founder Jeff Bezos criticised a tweet from US President Joe Biden calling for oil executives to reduce petrol prices.

Bezos was responding to Biden’s criticism of companies running petrol stations and setting prices for consumers.

“This is a time of war and global peril,” the president tweeted on Saturday. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.”

Bezos tweeted on Saturday night: “Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this. It’s either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.”

The national average for petrol was at US$4.812 on Sunday, according to AAA, near the record-high of US$5.016 set last month.

The White House took again to Twitter on Sunday to push back against Bezos.

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the elevated prices are ‘not basic market dynamics.’ It’s a market that is failing the American consumer.”

John Kirby, a senior National Security Council spokesman at the White House, said Biden has proposed measures, including at the Group of Seven summit, that could lower US petrol prices and has freed oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“If everybody cooperates on this we can bring the price down by at least about a dollar a gallon,” Kirby said on Fox News Sunday.

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Bezos has accused Biden of “misdirection” before.

In May, the e-commerce executive hit back a tweet from the president saying inflation could be tamed by making wealthy corporations “pay their fair share.”

Biden has been criticising oil and gas firms for making windfall profits.

Gas and energy are a leading driver of inflation, posing a major political issue for Democrats with midterm elections only months away. BLOOMBERG