Why Trump's Amazon Threat Feels Realer Than The Others

On Thursday, President Trump doubled down on his attacks on Amazon, tweeting criticisms of the company after an Axios piece published on Wednesday reported that he was "obsessed" with the corporation and wants to change its tax treatment. By now, people have gotten used to President Trump attacking companies, but this time may be different.

At the time of this writing, Amazon's stock price has plummeted 10.1% since its Tuesday high, losing over $31 billion in its market value. The drop is significant compared to many companies that Trump has come out against. 

After negative comments from the president, many companies see price gains or no change as those that see losses. Of those that have dropped, the most notable previously was Lockheed Martin, which only saw a 2.5% drop in the days after Trump called their F-35 contract "out of control." When Trump attacked Amazon in August, the company's price briefly fell by 0.2% before rebounding. 

The drastic price drop may reflect a recently changed perception among investors that Trump may be able to put his money where his mouth is. Recent actions from the Trump Administration targeting large corporations with antitrust and competition law show that Trump may be willing to attempt to slow Amazon's growth in his crusade against Jeff Bezos — who also happens to own The Washington Post, of which Trump is no great fan.

Trump has reportedly attempted to block multiple mergers and acquisitions based on seeming political motivation. 

• On March 12th, Trump personally blocked Broadcom's takeover of Qualcomm, claiming the decision was in the interest of national security. As CNBC reports, however, many in the finance community believe the decision was based on Trump's isolationist economic philosophy.
• In September 2017, Trump's Treasury Department blocked the acquisition of Lattice Semiconductor Corporation by the Chinese Canyon Bridge Fund, also citing national security concerns.
• The Trump Administration is suing to block the AT&T's domestic acquisition by Time Warner. Trump says the deal would put "too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," but some have speculated that the decision may have been partially motivated by Trump's feud with Time Warner-owned CNN.

The string of decisions has illustrated that Trump is more than willing to intervene in large corporate acquisitions or mergers. Combined with Trump's recent tweet and Axios' report, the trend suggests that Trump could be a major roadblock for Amazon. Acquisitions have been a tenet of Amazon's business strategy for the last few years, including the massive Whole Foods acquisition. Amazon has acquired over 80 companies since 1998. 

Financial insiders have gone on records saying that they've begun to take Trump more seriously. Goldman Sachs' Gregg Lemkau, co-head of investment banking, told attendees of Goldman Sachs Tech and Internet Conference in San Francisco in February that "for four days we were freaked out" following Trump's Twitter critique of Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods.

Facebook's recent data leak may also be contributing to the markets harsher response to Trump's Amazon take. Adding to fears of heightened regulation, Trump's former digital media director and 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted about Amazon's access to user data:

Even if the tweet is just a veiled threat, it's representative of a heightened awareness of how tech companies are handling user data that isn't likely to go away anytime soon. 

As Chris Sagers wrote in Slate in June, "our antitrust law, as it has come to be, is poorly equipped to deal with a company like Amazon," mostly allowing for challenges to horizontal rather than vertical integration. But Trump's recent moves to block vertical acquisitions or merger's suggests that Trump may be willing to take the fight to 2020, at least, which may spell trouble for Amazon's stock price.