Donald Trump has once again taken to Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to criticize Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) over taxes and jobs, causing shares of the company to fall by 0.3 percent to $980.00
The President tweeted: “Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the US are being hurt – many jobs being lost!”
He failed to provide any evidence to support the claims. Amazon is hiring rapidly within the US as it expands operations. The online retail giant has a goal of adding 100,000 employees by the middle of next year – something Trump “was pleased to play a role” in.
This is not the first time Trump has slammed the company on Twitter.
On June 28 he targeted Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos: “The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!”
Trump has claimed that Bezos only bought The Washington Post to have “political influence.”
Amazon is not the only company to receive as a criticizing tweet from the US President. When Trump tweeted Toyota (NYSE:TM) in January vowing to stop the car manufacturer moving to Mexico, shares in the company plummetted.
Trump’s vendetta against Amazon has been long standing. During a campaign rally in February 2016, Trump said to the crowd: “If I become president, oh [does Amazon] have problems. They’re going to have such problems.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hinted towards the administration taking “a position” on Amazon’s tax collection policy.
“So this is an issue that we’ve been looking at very carefully within the administration, and we expect to come out with a position shortly,” Mnuchin said. “I am encouraged that Amazon is now charging tax, I believe, on their own sales but not the marketplace. I’m not sure I understand the consistency on that, but I respect the states’ ability that there’s an awful lot of money that’s not being collected.”