The world's fourth-richest person just floated a tax idea that usually comes from the left.
Then he spent the rest of the interview defending the rest of the rich.
Jeff Bezos told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin that the U.S. should scrap income tax for the bottom half of earners. He pointed to a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year. She pays more than $12,000 in taxes.
"Does that really make sense?" Bezos asked.
That's a Bernie Sanders line coming from an Amazon founder. It echoes the kind of tax pitch Sanders and Warren have made for years.
It was the only part of the talk that sounded like the left.
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That's where the left talk stopped. Bezos called the broader attack on the rich an "age-old technique" of picking a villain.
He stood up for Citadel CEO Ken Griffin against New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's new tax push. He told Sorkin that "Ken Griffin isn't a villain."
He also denied the "buy, borrow, die" trick. Critics say that's how billionaires borrow against stock to skip taxes.
"There's no truth to this 'buy, borrow, die' thing," Bezos said. He added that he sells Amazon stock often.
On Senator Elizabeth Warren and other critics, Bezos said he pays billions in taxes. Doubling that, he said, wouldn't help a teacher in Queens.
Bezos also called AI critics "dead wrong." He said AI will push prices down over time. The catch is that rules can't come in too soon.
That lines up with what Amazon is telling investors. The company is spending billions on AI.
On Trump, Bezos said the president looks "more mature, more disciplined" than in his first term. He didn't give names or examples.
He also said Amazon's Melania Trump film was not an effort to win favor with the White House.
A new Pew poll shows half of U.S. adults are more worried than excited about AI. That cuts against the case Bezos made on stage.
He stuck to it anyway. He said AI will lift workers up, not push them out.
His main point: AI tools work like a bulldozer next to a shovel. The work just gets done at a higher level.
Mamdani hit back on X within hours. He wrote, "I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ."
The exchange caught the bigger split. The tax fight on the bottom half of earners has become the question both parties keep circling.
Bezos just put one of the loudest billionaire voices on the populist side of it.
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