FILE: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, speaking at the Economic Club of Washington’s Milestone Celebration in Washington.
(AP)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has distinguished his company from other big tech firms in declaring its willingness to work with the United States Department of Defense.
“If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” Bezos cautioned in San Francisco Monday at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the tech magazine Wired.
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Amazon is bidding for a 10-year contract with the Defense Department known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, JEDI, to offer cloud computing services worth up to $10 billion.
“We are going to continue to support the DoD, and I think we should,” Bezos said.
This is a great country and it does need to be defended.
Earlier this month, Google said it had removed its bid for JEDI because the contract went against the company's "A.I. Principles." On Friday, Microsoft employees published an open letter on Medium, urging the company not to take the contract.
"Many Microsoft employees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war," the letter read.
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Bezos acknowledged his unpopular stance.
“One of the jobs of the senior leadership team is to make the right decision, even when it’s unpopular,” Bezos said. "This is a great country and it does need to be defended."
"I know everybody is very conflicted about the current politics and so on,” he said, but, “This country is a gem.”
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