US Senator Bernie Sanders has criticised job cuts at The Washington Post on Wednesday, questioning owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to reduce staff while spending heavily on personal ventures.

“If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don’t tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff,” Sanders said in a post on X. “Democracy dies in oligarchy.”

The remarks came as the newspaper began layoffs affecting multiple newsroom desks, sharply reducing staff across the organisation.

Executive Editor Matt Murray told employees during a staff call that the cuts would impact the international, editing, metro and sports desks. The layoffs followed a recent decision by the newspaper to scale back coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

“For too long, we’ve operated with a structure that’s too rooted in the days when we were a quasi-monopoly local newspaper,” Murray said. “We need a new way forward and a sounder foundation.”

One reporter at the Post, who requested anonymity, described the scale of the layoffs as a “bloodbath”.

Affected journalists include Amazon beat reporter Caroline O’Donovan and Cairo bureau chief Claire Parker, along with other Middle East correspondents and editors. O’Donovan and Parker confirmed the job losses in posts on X.

In a statement, the newspaper said it was taking “several difficult but decisive actions” as part of restructuring across the company, adding that the steps were aimed at focusing on journalism that engages subscribers.

Murray said all newsroom departments were affected, adding that politics and government would remain the largest desk. He said the sports department would be closed in its current form.

The Washington Post made changes to business operations last year and announced job cuts, saying at the time that newsroom roles would not be affected. The newspaper, owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, offered voluntary separation packages across all functions in 2023 after reporting losses of $100 million.

The Washington Post Guild criticised the layoffs on X, saying that if Bezos was no longer willing to invest in the mission of the paper, it should have a different owner.

White House reporters at the newspaper wrote to Bezos last week, saying their reporting depended on collaboration with teams facing job losses and that maintaining a diverse newsroom was necessary during financial strain.