Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and the company’s board of directors are arriving in D.C. this week ahead of a series of high profile appearances lined up for Bezoz. However, an announcement about plans for the second Amazon headquarters is unlikely to be made.
Amazon has reportedly booked the Renwick Gallery for a 40-person dinner on Tuesday night. On Thursday evening, Bezos will sit for an interview hosted by the Economic Club of Washington, which is likely to be attended by 1,550 people – more than twice the club’s typical crowd.
“You could see it as a tea leaf, that he wants the board to see Washington,” one local business leader told Dallas News, the online edition of Dallas Morning News, on the condition of anonymity. “It’s a little bit of a positive sign that it [the meeting] is here and not in Boston,” which is another contender for the new headquarters.
The company told Dallas News that no announcement about Amazon’s second headquarters search is coming during this trip.
Amazon began searching for headquarters, dubbed HQ2, outside of its current home in Seattle last September, generating interest from elected officials across North America. There have been 238 proposals from different locations for the project. However, the company has not made any announcements since narrowing the field to 20 locations in January this year.
The Economic Club regularly invites high-profile business executives who are interviewed by billionaire David M. Rubenstein, the group’s president. The Bezos event is expected to attract the largest crowd since the group’s 25th-anniversary event in 2012, when Warren Buffett spoke.
Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, is also expected to visit the paper on Friday. Bezos is expected to be the keynote speaker at an Air Force conference at National Harbor on September 19.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) September 13, 2018
