A new contract in D.C. might be a sign of how tech giants and Silicon Valley tycoons are moving into Washington —and planning to dominate the nation’s capital for years to come.
The controversy is over a plan to move all the Defense Department’s data, both classified and unclassified, onto the cloud in order to make it more secure and accessible. On July 26, the Defense Department issued a request for proposals called JEDI, short for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure. Whichever company lands the contract will be awarded $10 billion, on top of instantly becoming one of America’s biggest federal contractors, according to Vanity Fair.
But from the start, the deal appeared to be rigged in favor of Amazon. According to insiders, the language contains a host of technical stipulations that only Amazon could meet. Vanity Fair also writes that the process of crafting JEDI bears all the hallmarks of the swamp that Trump keeps saying he will drain. And Amazon’s high-ranking connections in the Pentagon show how Jeff Bezos continues to wield influence in Washington, even as the president rails against the internet marketplace giant.
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