Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy ‘is being forced to clean up Jeff Bezos’ mess that saw firm expand too quickly during COVID as firm’s billionaire owner enjoys “neverending vacation”‘

Amazon’s new boss had to deal with another painful legacy from the Jeff Bezos era on Tuesday when the government launched a lawsuit that could break up the company.

Andy Jassy will have to fight back against accusations that the online giant is using its market dominance to drive up prices, overcharge sellers and stifle competition.

The investigation dates back to when Bezos headed the company he founded, and sober Wall Street analysts expressed sympathy for Jassy as his predecessor enjoys a seemingly ‘never-ending vacation’ with glamorous fiancée Lauren Sanchez after stepping back from the company in 2015. July 2021.

“He’s cleaning up a mess that someone else made,” says Sucharita Kodali of Forrester Research.

“And he does it while trying to keep the ship afloat.”

Bezos, 59, and Sanchez, 53, posted a series of glamorous photos on social media as they partied around the Mediterranean this summer

New CEO Andy Jassy first joined the company three days after leaving Harvard Business School and has taken a closer look at many of Bezos’ pet projects

Bezos, 59, is pictured relaxing on his latest ship as he took a holiday trip through the Mediterranean this summer, proposing to Sanchez as he returned for New York Fashion Week and Beyonce in LA earlier this month.

His $500 million yacht named Koru, with a figurehead carved in the likeness of Sanchez, has been docked in Sardinia, Croatia and Corfu, where billionaire friends including Oprah Winfrey and David Geffen dined on board.

The couple held the secret engagement party aboard the yacht off Italy’s Amalfi coast in July with guests including Kris Jenner and Bumble boss Whitney Wolfe Herd.

“He makes me laugh all the time,” Sanchez, 53, revealed.

‘He could be crazy. He is so happy, he inspires me every day, he makes me a better person every day; he is the most loving person I know.”

Jassy, ​​meanwhile, has tackled dozens of the billionaire’s pet projects, rolling back the company’s warehouse expansion program, scaling back investments in automated stores and laying off 27,000 employees.

He also demanded cuts to the company’s $7 billion TV production division, responsible for shows like The Boys and The Rings of Power.

Amazon’s profits soared during the pandemic as it took advantage of lockdowns to increase its share of the retail market, but crashed to a $2.7 billion loss last year, with analysts blaming its overexpansion the Bezos era.

Jassy’s moves have helped the company return to profit in the last quarter and see its share price rise by half since the start of the year – and he may have had his former boss in mind when he warned staff in March that they had to be back in the office or ‘you probably won’t succeed’.

“As a leadership team, we decided that we will be better for the customers and for our business in the office,” he emphasized.

The Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, follows a four-year investigation into the company and federal lawsuits filed against Alphabet’s Google and Facebook owner Meta.

It accuses the Silicon Valley giant of anti-competitive practices, including punishing sellers who offer lower prices on various websites by burying their listings on Amazon and making them harder to find.

The carefree billionaire accompanied his former presenter wife to the Big Apple for Ne York Fashion Week earlier this month

The couple also popped up in Las Vegas, where they joined Kris Jenner at Beyonce’s star-studded LA concert

The good life: The muscular billionaire has visited a series of exclusive resorts

The complaint also alleges that the company worsens the customer experience by replacing relevant search results with paid advertisements, favoring its own brands over other products it knows are of better quality, and charging high fees that force sellers almost half of their total revenue to Amazon.

The filing also asked the court to consider forcing the online retailer to sell assets, hinting at a possible attempt to break up the online retail giant.

Many had wondered whether the agency would seek a forced breakup of the retail giant, which is also dominant in cloud computing and has a growing presence in other sectors such as groceries and healthcare.

In a briefing with reporters, FTC Chair Lina Khan dodged questions about whether the agency will push for a breakup.

“At this stage the focus is more on accountability,” she said.

The company accused the regulator of being ‘wrong on the facts and the law’.

Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and Usher joined the couple last month on a walk along Dubrovnik’s main street, Stradun

“If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses – the opposite of what antitrust law is intended to do,” says Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky. responded.

Jassy has told investors he plans to fight back with expansion of artificial intelligence, healthcare and restructured logistics to improve product delivery.

“He’s done a lot, but he’s clearly going to have a lot more to do,” DA Davidson analyst Tom Forte told the New York Times.

“It would definitely be a tougher task for Jassy,” Kodali added.