- President Donald Trump reportedly met with Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz on Tuesday.
- The meeting came as Trump keeps blasting Amazon.
- Oracle and Amazon are locked in a competition for a Pentagon cloud computing contract worth billions.
President Donald Trump reportedly dined with Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz Tuesday night amid his repeated berating of Amazon — a company with which Oracle is in direct competition to land a Pentagon contract worth billions.
Bloomberg reported that Trump would dine with Catz and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider asking what was discussed at the meeting.
The meeting came amid Trump's war of words with the internet giant. On Tuesday, he tweeted that he was "right" about his criticism of Amazon's deal with the US Postal Service, later telling reporters that Amazon is causing massive store closures. Trump has launched attacks on Amazon for well more than a year, often tying the company to The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Multiple outlets have reported that Trump is trying to figure out what he can do to Amazon, such as considering a change in its tax status or utilizing antitrust law against the company. Another speculated-about option could come from meddling in the Pentagon contract, which aims to provide the Department of Defense with cloud computing services. Trump has yet to mention the contract in his ongoing attacks on Amazon.
The Pentagon intends to award the multi-year contract to one vendor, which has drawn some concern from lawmakers and competitors — such as Oracle — who believe that the process will favor Amazon, which already dominates the cloud services market. Heather Babb, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told Business Insider that the competition for the contract would be "full and open" to land the high-profile and well-compensated government contract.
Draft requirements released by the Pentagon for the project — called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud initiative, or JEDI — say that bidders must be able to obtain those security credentials within nine months of winning the contract. As of now, Amazon Web Services is the only potential vendor that meets that requirement.
In addition, the Pentagon recently agreed to a deal worth up to $65 million with a company that partners with Amazon Web Services to provide cloud services to the US Transportation Command.
Meanwhile, some opponents of the potential military agreement are clearly trying to plant a thought in the president's mind.
The group Less Government last week placed an ad in the New York Post — known to be one of Trump's favorite publications — highlighting the possible deal. Addressed directly to Trump, the ad warns that "your Defense Department is set to award a no-bid, ten-year contract for all its IT infrastructure to Administration-enemy Jeff Bezos' Amazon."
Full page ad in the New York Post. Bezos has smart enemies. pic.twitter.com/eilLlnG3Bh
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) March 27, 2018
Catz, meanwhile, is one of Trump's closest allies in Silicon Valley. She was reportedly a candidate to replace former national security adviser H.R. McMaster and served on the Trump transition team in 2016.
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