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Google Can Side-Step Trump by Taking a Cue From Amazon’s Playbook

After Trump badmouths Google, Alphabet can maintain silence like Amazon, regain their share market losses after Trump’s remarks.

Google Can Side-Step Trump by Taking a Cue From Amazon’s Playbook
The Google Inc. logo sits illuminated on the company’s exhibition stand at the Noah Technology Conference in Berlin, Germany. (Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc.’s Google could probably use some advice from Jeff Bezos right now.

Donald Trump’s Tuesday morning tweets -- accusing Google of rigging results about him -- seem to place the search engine at the top of the president’s most wanted list, a position familiar to Amazon.com Inc. and its chief executive officer. Google responded that its search feature “is not used to set a political agenda” and doesn’t bias results toward any political ideology. The company’s shares closed down 0.8 percent.

The tech giant could consider taking a page from Bezos’s book, or more likely his Kindle, and let the matter drop. In late March, Amazon saw as much as $53 billion erased from its market value in one day after Trump was said to be “obsessed” with regulating the e-commerce company. Amazon kept quiet, recovered its losses within a month and has traded higher ever since.

Google Can Side-Step Trump by Taking a Cue From Amazon’s Playbook

To be sure, Google may not be as popular with consumers as Amazon, and any scrutiny from the president could weigh on its sentiment on Wall Street. Trump on Tuesday warned that Google -- along with Facebook.com Inc. and Twitter Inc. -- “better be careful” as the companies “are treading on very, very troubled territory.” Google is due to face lawmakers at a hearing on Russian election meddling on Sept. 5.

--With assistance from Jeran Wittenstein.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kamaron Leach in New York at kleach6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Morwenna Coniam

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.