Elizabeth Warren says Jeff Bezos is a 'thin-skinned' billionaire trying to distract from tax avoidance and poor treatment of workers

• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been feuding with the White House over the causes of inflation.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren stepped into the fray on Tuesday, saying he's a "thin-skinned billionaire."
• Warren said Bezos is trying to distract from Amazon's tax avoidance and treatment of workers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts lambasted Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as he kept up a days-long feud with the White House over social spending and inflation.

Warren on Tuesday wrote on Twitter that Bezos is a "thin-skinned billionaire" who is lashing out to distract from Amazon's "shameful treatment of workers and its massive tax avoidance."

—Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 17, 2022

It comes after Bezos feuded with the White House over the size and scope of their economic agenda, once known as the Build Back Better plan. The billionaire attacked the Biden administration over the weekend for pushing an expansive social spending and climate bill on the heels of a large stimulus law. He argued the Build Back Better bill would worsen inflation and push prices up.

"They know inflation hurts the neediest the most," he wrote in a Tuesday tweet.

The Biden administration assailed Bezos, saying it "wasn't a surprise" he opposed a measure that included taxes on the richest people like him. That package was meant to level the playing field in the US economy with new spending on childcare and healthcare. They also said it would be fully paid for with tax hikes on the super-rich, thus diminishing its potential to fuel inflation.

Bezos is not a new sparring partner for Warren, who has previously taken aim at him in myriad calls for a wealth tax — and criticized how little both he and Amazon currently pay.

A bombshell 2021 report from ProPublica found that Bezos reportedly did not pay income taxes for two years, and even reportedly received a tax credit for families who make under $100,00 in 2011. Amazon also paid nothing in federal income taxes in both 2018 and 2017. 

When touting her Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which would put a 2% tax on households with a net worth of $50 million to $1 billion, and a 3% tax on households with a net worth over $1 billion, Warren specifically homed in on Bezos.

"Jeff Bezos, I'm looking at you," she told CNBC's Squawk Box.

And, as Bezos prepared to blast off into space last summer, Warren told TMZ that he was "laughing at every person in America who actually paid taxes."

"Jeff Bezos' trip to outer space is being financed by all the rest of the US taxpayers who paid their taxes so that Jeff Bezos didn't have to," she said.