Bezos Loses His Will

On Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET, staffers at The Washington Post received a rare message from chief executive and publisher Will Lewis in their inboxes, with no subject line. After a demoralizing week of painful layoffs at the Jeff Bezos-owned news organization, which eliminated a staggering third of the workforce, staffers had yet to hear from the Super Bowl-bound Lewis, who was inexplicably absent from Wednesday’s Zoom announcement regarding the cuts.

But, as it turned out, the first time they heard from Lewis since the layoffs would be the last time, as what looked like a hastily written email announced his abrupt exit after two turbulent years at the newspaper, telling staff that “now is the right time for me to step aside.”

The news landed as a seismic shock, especially on a Saturday evening, and just after Lewis was spotted on a red carpet at an NFL event ahead of the big game. But inside the newsroom, Lewis’ resignation was met with mixed emotions, ranging from relief and celebration to a cathartic sense of vindication. “Good fucking riddance,” one staffer messaged Status. “Will’s legacy can be summed up as nothing more than having destroyed an institution in American media.”

Lewis’ exit serves as a small consolation for staffers still reeling from one of the most devastating rounds of layoffs in The Post’s history, with over 300 newsroom jobs eliminated, wiping out entire sections, including sports and books coverage. In his email, Lewis referenced “difficult decisions” taken under his leadership, “in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post.” But one staffer noted that Lewis didn’t even have the “common decency to show up in any real leadership capacity” when it really mattered on Wednesday.

Regardless, the newsroom appears “cautiously celebratory,” as one Post staffer told Status, adding, “It feels like a small win in this greater destruction of The Post.” Another noted that Lewis’ resignation was a “great way to cheer up 300 people who have been fired.”

Lewis’ tenure at The Post was tumultuous, to be sure, characterized by an unprecedented departure of talent en masse and failed strategic endeavors. After winning over owner Bezos and joining the newspaper in 2024, Lewis was tasked with turning around The Post’s economic outlook after years of financial losses and subscription churn. “People aren’t reading your stuff,” Lewis told staffers shortly after starting the role, a comment that certainly didn’t help him garner any trust within an already skeptical newsroom.

The British-born Lewis spent a large portion of his career within Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, including stints at The Wall Street Journal and Daily Telegraph. Shortly after he was tapped as The Post’s new publisher, NPR reported that Lewis had been involved in covering up aspects of the phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch's U.K. tabloids over a decade earlier. Lewis denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations and his subsequent attempts to squash coverage of the developments soured the newsroom on his leadership almost immediately. Those tensions were exasperated by the ouster of then-Executive Editor Sally Buzbee, a set of controversies that eventually proved insurmountable for Lewis.

Over the next two years, Lewis implemented ill-fated experiments like the third newsroom and A.I.-generated products that caused the paper public embarrassment, while staffers failed to see him put forth any serious strategy to turn around the paper’s financial outlook. As The Post hemorrhaged subscriptions after Bezos spiked the editorial board’s endorsement of Kamala Harris and the subsequent rightward shift of the opinion section, Lewis watched as once-loyal readers gave up on The Post, proposing no real solution to the loss in revenue.

“He should have been fired from the start—not my colleagues,” one staffer told Status.

In Lewis’ exceedingly brief resignation note, the departing publisher thanked Bezos–and only Bezos–for his “support and leadership” during his time in the role, adding, “the institution could not have a better owner.” Minutes later, as The Post announced chief financial officer Jeff D’Onofrio as acting chief executive and publisher, Bezos did not offer the same gratitude to Lewis in a statement, failing to mention the departing executive at all. A spokesperson for Bezos did not respond to a request for comment when asked about Lewis’ departure.

“The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Each and every day our readers give us a road map to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus,” Bezos said in his first public comments about the newspaper since Wednesday’s layoffs. That statement itself drew widespread criticism, with many questioning whether “data,” at this stage, offered a “road map” to much of anything.

But as Bezos’ overt courtship of Donald Trump has become increasingly conspicuous, and the billionaire seems more willing to do reputational harm to a storied journalistic institution than support it financially in a way that it could actually thrive in a digital era, many in the newsroom expressed intense skepticism about his sincerity. And whatever the short-term reaction, Lewis’ departure does little to ease the deeper existential dread inside The Post about whether their owner has the newspaper’s best interests at heart.

One former staffer told Status, “It was clear for so long that Lewis had no strategy, and Bezos allowed him to completely mismanage a great journalistic institution,” asking, “How does The Post now recover?”

For now, that job of rebuilding the morale among what is left of a decimated staff falls to D’Onofrio, who joined The Post in June after stints as chief of Tumblr, general manager of Yahoo News, and chief financial officer of Raptive. In a memo, D’Onofrio noted his “long-standing respect and admiration for not only the vitality and future” of The Post’s journalism, “but for the critical role it plays in our democracy.” The acting chief executive echoed Bezos’ statement that “customer data will drive our decisions,” while citing a “renewed commitment to building a sustainable business.”

But the appointment raises more questions than it answers for remaining Post staffers, who are relatively unfamiliar with D’Onofrio and unclear whether his role could become permanent. “He’s a smart business guy, but not really publisher material,” one person familiar with D’Onofrio told me. Those who have encountered D’Onofrio in his capacity as chief financial officer told Status that his primary interest appeared to be “belt-tightening,” as one staffer put it, imposing inconvenient expense-report guidelines that led to clashes with editorial management, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Some staffers fear that The Post’s next chapter will be defined by a continued obsession with “sustainability” and corporate-speak that have focused on cutting jobs without evidence of a larger plan. Only time will tell, of course. But while Lewis might have been pushed out in a way that was “cathartic” for some internally, his legacy will be leaving behind a diminished version of the institution he briefly led.

The latest episode of Power Lines just dropped.

In this week’s episode: We discuss how Jeff Bezos left The WaPo twisting in the wind, ignoring pleas from his staffers as he slashed a third of the storied newsroom—all while cozying up to Pete Hegseth. Plus, Bari Weiss stands by her new wellness contributor Peter Attia, even as DOJ-released documents expose his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And Netflix boss Ted Sarandos gets dragged into the MAGA culture wars on Capitol Hill, while Donald Trump unleashes a sexist attack on CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

You can watch on YouTube—or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy the program, subscribe so you never miss an episode!

[Data via Box Office Mojo]