Trump pledges to 'look' at $10B Pentagon contract amid complaints about Amazon
President Donald Trump pledged to "take a very strong look" at the $10 billion cloud computing contract the Pentagon plans to award later this year after receiving complaints that the bidding process appeared to be tailored for Amazon.
Trump told reporters Thursday that companies competing against Amazon lodged "tremendous complaints" with the administration over the contract. Oracle, IBM and Microsoft were among the players in an at-times bitter battle for the 10-year contract, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. Oracle and IBM were eliminated from bidding after failing to meet technical criteria earlier this year, while Microsoft is Amazon's sole remaining rival in the contest.
"They are saying it wasn't competitively bid," Trump said at the White House. "Some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it."
Oracle has been the most vocal about its issues with the contracting process and brought a lawsuit claiming the procurement team had a conflict of interest. That lawsuit was dismissed last week. Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz served on Trump's transition team and has been a business adviser since he entered the White House.
"I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what's going on because I have had very few things where there has been such complaining," Trump told reporters.
Trump has been a frequent critic of Amazon and its billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
Rishika Dugyala contributed to this report.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine