U.S. Senator Josh Hawley Reacts To Amazon’s Purchase Of MGM: “Sale Should Not Go Through”
John F. Trent
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Josh Hawley, a U.S. Senator representing Missouri, reacted to the announcement that Amazon purchased MGM for $8.45 billion.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Paloma (Ana de Armas) in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove© 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The Senator posted to Twitter that the “sale should not go through.”
He went on to state, “Amazon is already a monopoly platform that owns e-commerce, shipping, groceries & the cloud.”
He concluded, “They shouldn’t be permitted to buy anything else. Period.”
Source: Josh Hawley Twitter
Amazon announced the purchase of MGM for $8.45 billion in a press release on May 26, 2021.
In that release they stated that the two companies “have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire MGM for a purchase price of $8.45 billion.”
Mike Hopkins, the Senior Vice President of Prime Video and Amazon Studios then touted MGM’s catalog of films and TV, “MGM has a vast catalog with more than 4,000 films—12 Angry Men, Basic Instinct, Creed, James Bond, Legally Blonde, Moonstruck, Poltergeist, Raging Bull, Robocop, Rocky, Silence of the Lambs, Stargate, Thelma & Louise, Tomb Raider, The Magnificent Seven, The Pink Panther, The Thomas Crown Affair, and many other icons—as well as 17,000 TV shows—including Fargo, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Vikings—that have collectively won more than 180 Academy Awards and 100 Emmys.”
After that he promised to reimage them, “The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling.”
James Bond (DANIEL CRAIG) in the 007 action adventure CASINO ROYALE, from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Pictures and Columbia Pictures through Sony Pictures Releasing.
The announcement of the purchase comes as Amazon is facing pushback from both Hawley and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders after an amendment was tacked on to New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s Endless Frontier Act that appropriates $10 billion to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin.
Fox Business reports the $10 billion “was part of an amendment tacked on to the Endless Frontier Act… The amendment was authored by the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Maria Cantwell, who represents Washington state, where Blue Origin is headquartered, and Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi.”
Jackson Lanier, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
As The Hill reports, the bill does not specifically name Blue Origin but rather directs the funds to NASA’s Artemis lunar landing program to award a contract to build a lunar lander. An initial contract was awarded to SpaceX over Blue Origin.
The bill is opposed by Senator Sanders, who wrote on Twitter, “When we landed on the moon, there was great collective pride in that achievement. Our space program should be something that we ALL take prat in. We shouldn’t hand over $10B in corporate welfare to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, who are jointly worth $350B, to fund their space hobby.”
When we landed on the moon, there was great collective pride in that achievement. Our space program should be something that we ALL take part in. We shouldn’t hand over $10B in corporate welfare to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, who are jointly worth $350B, to fund their space hobby. pic.twitter.com/f1uLPXPjuR
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 26, 2021
Hawley also questioned why funds were being appropriated to Bezos’ Blue Origin. He wrote on Twitter, ”
Source: Josh Hawley Twitter
What do you make of Hawley’s reaction to Amazon purchasing MGM? Do you think the sale should go through?
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