When Jeff Bezos was chief executive of Amazon, he took an arms-length stance toward the company’s affairs in Washington. He rarely lobbied lawmakers. He testified only once before Congress, under the threat of subpoena.Andy Jassy, Mr. Bezos’ successor, is trying a different approach.Since becoming Amazon’s chief executive last July, Mr. Jassy, 54, has visited Washington at least three times to traverse Capitol Hill and visit the White House. In September, he met with Ron Klain, President Biden’s chief of staff. He has called Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, to lobby against antitrust legislation and talked with Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, about Amazon’s new corporate campus in the state.“He was very inquisitive,” said Mr. Kaine, who met with Mr. Jassy at the Capitol in September and spoke with him by phone last month. Mr. Jassy was diplomatic rather than out to “bowl you over” by “force of personality,” Mr. Kaine said, and came prepared with knowledge of the lawmaker’s committee assignments.Mr. Jassy’s actions in Washington are a sign of a new era taking shape at Amazon. The executive, who joined the company in 1997 and built its Amazon Web Services cloud computing business, followed Mr. Bezos’ footsteps …
