Washington Post cartoonist quits after drawing of Bezos, other billionaires with Trump rejected

A Washington Post cartoonist has quit his role at the newspaper, saying his bosses blocked the publication of a satirical cartoon depicting billionaires, including one who looks like the owner of the Post. Jeff Bezoskneeling before the president-elect Donald Trump.

Ann Telnaesa Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, said in a blog post Friday that she leave the card after a drawing has been rejected. This was the first time at the Post that a cartoon was “killed because of who or what I chose to point my pen at,” Telnaes wrote.

A rough sketch of the cartoon, published on Telnaes’ Substack blog, shows several men kneeling before a larger man wearing a suit and long tie, representing Trump. Telnaes wrote that the likes are of Meta Platforms CEO Mark ZuckerbergOpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Bezos. Three of the men are holding bags of money. Also included is a drawing of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, which he represents Walt DisneyABC News.

The drawing was rejected by the paper outright, with no suggestions for potential changes, Telnaes told CNBC in an email.

David Shipley, editor of the editorial page of the Washington Post, said in a statement that the cartoon was rejected because of its similarity to the columns of the paper, not for whom it is intended.

“I respect Ann Telnaes and everything she has given to the Post. But I do not agree with her interpretation of events. Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of an evil force. My decision was guided from the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already planned another column – this one a satire – for the publication The only prejudice was against repetition “, Shipley said.

The departure of the cartoonist comes amid controversy over how the media and corporate leaders they dealt with Trumpboth before and after the November election.

U Washington Post he said that Bezos knocked a planned endorsement of Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris from the newspaper before the presidential election. At the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong also decided that the paper should withhold any approval in the presidential race, spurring the resignation of several members of the editorial board.

ABC News, meanwhile, settled a defamation suit with Trump for $15 millionwhich drew criticism from some media law experts who thought the news organization had a strong case.

Bezos and Zuckerberg, through Meta, planned to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, the The Wall Street Journal reported last monthand have been among several billionaires to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home since his election victory. Multiple outlets have reported that OpenAI’s Altman is as well $1 million donation at the inauguration fund.

Sen. Elizabeth WarrenMass D, weighed on the resignation of Telnaes on X, saying that the cartoon was “worth a share”: “The leaders of Big Tech are kneeling to Donald Trump and it is not surprising why: billionaires like Jeff Bezos like to pay a lower tax rate than a public school teacher.”

Telnaes’ departure is the latest of several internal shake-ups at the Post. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis took over the paper last year and met with the newsroom, as reported by NPR. Several top editors at the paper have left since Lewis took over.

Telnaes won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2001. He wrote in his blog that he has worked for the Post since 2008.