The streaming division of the commerce giant shelled out rougly $75 million to acquire and promote the doc, which grossed $16 million worldwide.

Jeff Bezos defends Amazon’s Melania as ‘good business decision,’ but says he had ‘nothing to do’ with doc

The streaming division of the commerce giant shelled out rougly $75 million to acquire and promote the doc, which grossed $16 million worldwide.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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May 20, 2026 9:50 p.m. ET

Jeff Bezos and Melania Trump. Credit:

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic; Taylor Hill/WireImage

- Jeff Bezos is defending Amazon's decision to spend $75 million licensing and promoting *Melania*.

- "I had nothing to do with that. By the way, it appears to be a good business decision. It did very well in theaters," Bezos told CNBC on Wednesday.

- The controversial Melania Trump documentary made $16 million at the global box office — higher than most documentaries ever reach, but far lower than it would take to break even.

Jeff Bezos is standing by his baby, kind of.

During a Wednesday interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC's *Squawk Box*, the Amazon founder offered a creative response to allegations that his company's streaming division shelled out $75 million on the controversial *Melania *doc as an attempt to curry favor with President Donald Trump.

Regarding first the charge that first lady Melania Trump pitched Bezos herself on the idea during a 2024 dinner at her husband's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the entrepreneur claimed, "The Melania thing is a falsehood that will not die. I see it reported all the time that somehow I was involved in this, that we did this at this Mar-a-Lago dinner. It's not true."

Simple enough. But he didn't stop there. "We have denied it, Melania's office has denied it. It's not true, I had nothing to do with that. By the way, it appears it was a good business decision," Bezos said.

Melania Trump in 'Melania'.

Amazon MGM Studios

According to the current fourth richest man on Earth, *Melania* "did very well in theaters. It's done very well on streaming. People are very curious about Melania. So even though I had nothing to do with it, it appears that the Amazon team made a very wise business decision."

Fact check: partly true, partly not. *Melania*'s theatrical performance can be viewed through a few different frames that yield different interpretations.

Objectively, it was a disaster. Directed by Brett Ratner — his first film since being accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women in 2017 — *Melania *earned just over $16 million at the global box office after a four-week run in theaters. That isn't even half of the price Amazon paid merely to license the film ($35 million), and the company spent an additional $40 million on marketing and promotion.

But viewed in the context of its form — documentary film — $16 million is a killing. The last time a documentary feature really took off in theaters was in 2018, when the Chinese government-sponsored *Amazing China *swept the country to an astounding $72 million gross. By contrast, 2025's most profitable documentary, *Becoming Led Zeppelin*, ended its global run with $16 million, and 2024's top earner, *Am I Racist*, stopped its tally with $12.3 million.

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Bezos continued to clarify his non-involvement with *Melania *by elaborating on the size of the company he founded in 1994. "I also had nothing to do with *Project Hail Mary*, which I regret because it's an incredible success," he said, naming Amazon MGM Studio's most profitable film of the year thus far.

"I wish I had greenlit that, but I didn't. Amazon's a big company that makes a lot of decisions, but this idea that [*Melania*] is somehow a way of buying influence, it's just not correct," he added.

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Elsewhere in the CNBC interview, Bezos, who attended Trump's 2025 inauguration, praised the president as "more mature" in his second term than in his first. "We need our business leaders to provide input into the administration, regardless of who the president is," he said. "I'm on the side of America, and that is so important."

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