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The Amazon founder has been cozying up to Donald Trump for some time, from killing a Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris to attending Trump’s indoor inauguration. In the same February 2025 WSJ piece, the paper revealed that Melania pitched the documentary to Bezos personally when he dined a Mar-a-Lago in December:
[Melania] was looking for a buyer for a documentary about her transition back to first lady. Her agent had pitched the film, which she would executive produce, to a number of studios, including the one owned by Amazon. As the meeting approached, Melania consulted with director Brett Ratner on how to sell her idea to the world’s third-richest man. Melania regaled Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, with the project’s details at dinner.
Just over two weeks later, Amazon, a company that prides itself on frugality and sharp negotiating, agreed to pay $40 million to license the film — the most Amazon had ever spent on a documentary and nearly three times the next-closest offer.
Netflix and Apple declined even to bid. Paramount made a lowball $4 million distribution-rights offer. Disney, the most interested studio besides Amazon, offered $14 million.
And in March 2025 a “person close to Bezos” told the Financial Times that the Melania documentary “is patently ridiculous, but is very pragmatic”. They added, “He is doing a deal, offering money to buy the Trump family’s affection and flattering the president. If you think about it in terms of costs versus benefit, it is pretty low. It’s a smart investment.”
An Amazon spokesman downplayed the suggestion that the deal was part of Bezos’s effort to kiss up to the new administration, telling the WSJ, “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it.”
The documentary isn’t the only deal the Bezos-owned company has made with the Trumps recently. In March 2025, Amazon announced that Prime Video would begin streaming The Apprentice, the reality competition show in which Donald Trump played a successful businessman. The president promoted the show’s streaming debut with two posts on Truth Social. It’s unclear how much he stands to make from the deal.
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Margaret Hartmann
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