Bezos rep says Saudis stole racy texts, leaked them to the Enquirer

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon.com, in May 2018. (credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The government of Saudi Arabia gained access to the private contents of Jeff Bezos' phone, a Bezos-hired private investigator alleged in a Saturday post at the Daily Beast. According to the investigator, Gavin De Becker, the Saudis obtained racy text messages between the married Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. The material was leaked to the National Enquirer, which published a story revealing Bezos' affair.

"Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos' phone and gained private information," De Becker wrote. He added that it was "unclear to what degree, if any," the National Enquirer "was aware of the details" of how the information had been obtained.

De Becker thinks the Saudis may have been motivated by the Bezos-owned Washington Post's dogged coverage of last October's murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While the Saudi government initially denied responsibility for the killing, the CIA has reportedly concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's murder.

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