Did Saudi hack Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's phone?

NEW DELHI: The security chief for Amazon's chief executive Jeff Bezos says the Saudi government had access to Bezos's phone and gained private information from it. The revelation, published in an opinion piece, comes nearly two months after Jeff Bezos said US tabloid National Enquirer blackmailed him with the threat of publishing intimate pictures he sent to his rumoured girlfriend, and linking it to the Washington Post's — the paper he owns — coverage of President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia.

But unlike Bezos’s blog, which had screenshots of mails from an Enquirer executive, Gavin de Becker, the security chief, did not provide any proof for his claim. He also wrote that he would not speak again publicly on the issue. It thus complicates an already messy — and dirty — scandal that began when the Enquirer started publishing stories on Bezos's impending divorce from his wife.



The National Enquirer was the subject of an investigation by the Washington Post and other publications over its support to Donald Trump's campaign — including getting exclusive rights to a story of a sexual affair he had with a pornstar only to never publish it, thus burying it from public view. Bezos had then cited an New York Times article to say the Enquirer brought someone with close ties to the Saudi royal family to a White House dinner.

Note: Trump has backed Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, even disregarding his intelligence team.

Now de Becker says Saudi government had access to Bezos's phone — hinting that the nude pictures that the Enquirer had threatened to publish came from Saudi. "Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos's phone, and gained private information," de Becker wrote.

"As of today, it is unclear to what degree, if any, AMI was aware of the details." AMI is acronym of American Media Inc, the parent company of the National Enquirer.