Amazon boss Jeff Bezos grilled over powerful position

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has appeared in front of a House committee in the US to defend himself against claims his company has too much power.

Leaders of Facebook, Google and Apple were also in attendance as they faced threats of further regulation in the US, with conservative politicians claiming the firms are biased against them and Democrats arguing they use their monopolies to silence competitive smaller businesses.

David Cicilline, a Democrat representative on the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, noted that companies using Amazon as a marketplace had likened getting their payment from the firm as a "drug".

That is to say, it feels good initially, but they are eventually run out of business when the e-commerce giant launches rival products. "I completely disagree with that characterisation,” Bezos replied.

Bezos, the richest man in the world, also dodged a question as to whether his company used seller data to make business decisions. The answer was not simple, he argued.

Earlier, in a statement to the committee, he had commented: “I believe Amazon should be scrutinised. We should scrutinise all large institutions, whether they’re companies, government agencies, or non-profits. Our responsibility is to make sure we pass such scrutiny with flying colours.”

“Customer obsession has made us what we are, and allowed us to do ever greater things. I know what Amazon could do when we were 10 people. I know what we could do when we were 1,000 people, and when we were 10,000 people,” he added.

“And I know what we can do today when we’re nearly a million. I love garage entrepreneurs; I was one. But, just like the world needs small companies, it also needs large ones. There are things small companies simply can’t do. I don’t care how good an entrepreneur you are, you’re not going to build an all-fiber Boeing 787 in your garage.”

He went on to flag up Amazon’s work on important societal issues like climate change and its investment of more than $270 billion in the US over the last decade.

Sign up for our free retail technology newsletter here.