Amazon accused Trump of bias, and now Microsoft’s $10 billion JEDI cloud contract is on hold

Donald Trump does not like Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, and that dislike may have just cost Microsoft — yes, Microsoft — $10 billion. At least for now, anyway. 

According to CNBC, Microsoft’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing contract with the Pentagon was just put on hold in response to a legal challenge filed by Amazon. Why? Well, that would be because Amazon thinks Trump has it out for them and inappropriately influenced the awarding of the contract. 

Amazon placing the blame for the loss of the hotly contested contract on Trump’s feet isn’t itself new. The company has long claimed that the president is after Amazon.

“DoD’s substantial and pervasive errors are hard to understand and impossible to assess separate and apart from the president’s repeatedly expressed determination to, in the words of the president himself, ‘screw Amazon,'” read a redacted complaint made public in December. 

It appears that a judge is willing to hear this out in more detail, and, as such, Microsoft’s contract is now on hold.

“The question is whether the president of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends,” read an Amazon statement, in part, sent to Mashable on Monday of this week.

Notably, CNBC reports that Amazon has agreed to pay $42 million for any “costs and damages” that result from the injunction if it turns out to have been “issued wrongfully.” That, of course, is a tiny price for Amazon to pay in order to get a second shot at $10 billion. 

Microsoft, for its part, isn’t pleased.

“While we are disappointed with the additional delay, we believe that we will ultimately be able to move forward with the work to make sure those who serve our country can access the new technology they urgently require,” wrote Microsoft’s corporate vice president of communication, Frank X. Shaw, in an emailed statement. “We have confidence in the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough, and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft.”

We also reached out to Amazon for comment, but received no immediate response. 

SEE ALSO: Amazon sues Pentagon over lost JEDI contract, blaming Trump bias

Perhaps everyone at the company is too busy freaking out at the fact that the president’s pettiness may have just put them back in the running for a $10 billion defense contract.