Amazon market value falls by $5.7b after Trump's Twitter criticism

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Amazon market value falls by $5.7b after Trumps Twitter criticism

Washington - "Towns, cities and states throughout the US are being hurt - many jobs being lost!"

By AP

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Published: Thu 17 Aug 2017, 3:48 PM

Last updated: Thu 17 Aug 2017, 7:01 PM

President Donald Trump is renewing his attacks on e-commerce giant Amazon, and he says the company is "doing great damage to tax paying retailers."

Trump tweets that "towns, cities and states throughout the US are being hurt - many jobs being lost!"

The president has often criticized the company and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
According to media reports, the comments resulted in briefly wiping off $5.7billion off the e-commerce giant's stock market valuation.
"Amazon's shares lost 1.2 per cent of their value in two hours of pre-market trading after Mr Trump's comments. They regained the lost value after markets opened in New York, trading down up 0.33 per cent by lunchtime," The Independent reported.
Many traditional retailers are closing stores and blaming Amazon for a shift to buying goods online. But the company has been hiring thousands of warehouse workers on the spot at job fairs across the country. Amazon has announced goal of adding 100,000 full-time workers by the middle of next year.

Trump has in the past tweeted that Amazon was not paying "Internet taxes." But it's unclear what he meant by that. Amazon.com collects state sales taxes in all 45 states with a sales tax and the District of Columbia, according to their website.
State governments have sought to capture sales taxes lost to internet retailers, though they have struggled with a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that retailers must have a physical presence in a state before officials can make them collect sales tax.

Amazon did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.


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