A dance of billions seems to exist in the higher government and military positions of the USA, as the Pentagon canceled former President Trump's $10 billion cloud deal with Microsoft.
The US Department of Defense plan is called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI), has a budget of $10 billion and was part of a broader digital modernization of the Pentagon aimed at making it more technologically agile. Outsourcing all of the US military's security requirements to a private cloud company would be a stamp of approval that would potentially rub off on all other government customers, and take the contracting company off the ground.
According to Reuters, the agreement with Microsoft was made during the Trump era, even leaving spikes that the former president had influenced the Pentagon military for their decision. Back then the two main rivals were Microsoft and Amazon. The two companies had been trying for years to convince businesses and governments that it was safe to use them services their.
Although Amazon was the favorite, the deal was given to Pickupsoft, prompting Amazon to file a complaint against the decision, alleging that the former president improperly pressured military officials to take the contract away from Amazon.
Trump publicly ridiculed then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and repeatedly criticized the company. Amazon, for its part, said the Pentagon's decision was full of "terrible mistakes" that resulted from "inappropriate pressure from Trump."
However, the shares of both companies closed at a high record.