Finance | August 1, 2017 10:26 am

Why Wall Street Fears Jeff Bezos More Than Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin

Executives increasingly feel threatened by the ever-expanding Amazon empire.

Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon, arrives for the third day of the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, July 13, 2017 in Sun Valley, Idaho. Every July, some of the world's most wealthy and powerful businesspeople from the media, finance, technology and political spheres converge at the Sun Valley Resort for the exclusive weeklong conference. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

By Matthew Reitman

Ask Wall Street about the single greatest threat, and executives won’t name an adversarial country or terror organization.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, is striking fear into the heart of Fortune 500 CEOs. Wall Street is concerned Amazon has morphed from a retail killer to a mammoth threat to just about any sector it sets its sights on, from food to robotics.

Many executives wonder if Bezos will upend their business model next. He’s replaced Trump as the topic of conversation in earnings calls recently. According to a Bloomberg analysis, Amazon was mentioned 635 times compared to Trump 162 times over the last 90 days. In the last month, C-Suites discussed Bezos’ $472 billion empire five times more than they talked about Trump.

Bloomberg reports the mentions often reference moves Amazon has made to suggest the direction the market is moving or how quickly it can change. On a recent McDonald’s earnings call, its CEO mentioned the $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods.

Meal-kit delivery service Blue Apron’s IPO struggled once Amazon’s similar ambitions were made apparent by the aforementioned Whole Foods purchase, Vanity Fair reports. Best Buy’s value dipped by $1 billion following Amazon’s announcement of a Geek Squad rival.