Jeff Bezos warns Americans to ‘batten down the hatches’ as recession looms

In a Tweet posted Tuesday evening, Bezos showcased a video of Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon warning that there was a good chance for a recession from CNBC. Bezos wrote: “Yep, the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.”

Bezos and Solomon are the latest in a growing number of high-profile executives who are sounding alarms about the state of the economy.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has been especially hawkish, saying he expects the recession will hit in six to nine months and stocks could fall another 30%. And Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has said “there will be one. It’s just a question of when and, frankly, how hard.”

In fact, 90% of CEOs believe a recession is coming, with half already planning for layoffs. Bezos, who now serves as executive chair of Amazon, did not go into further detail or discuss how a recession could affect the company, but it has closed or abandoned plans for more than 40 warehouses in recent months.

It’s not the first time Bezos has spoken up about the economy this year. In May, he got into a Twitter spat with President Joe Biden over the taxes paid by corporations, including Amazon.

“Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection,” he wrote.

Days later, he used the social media tool to further criticisms, saying “the administration tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an already over-heated, inflationary economy and only Manchin saved them from themselves. Inflation is a regressive tax that most hurts the least affluent. Misdirection doesn’t help the country.”