Baker holds back on Bezos discussion on Amazon HQ2
Grant Welker
Amazon's Seattle headquarters
For now, Gov. Charlie Baker has held back from trying to make a chief-executive-to-chief-executive pitch for Amazon to choose Boston as the location of its second national headquarters.
The governor, during a radio appearance Thursday, said that so far he has not tried to speak with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos about the state's bid which was selected by the company as one of 20 nationwide to make it to the next round of the site selection process.
Baker said Amazon has talked with Bay State officials, and done some field visits as it tries to narrow the search, but the governor has confined his conversations to lower-level executives who "own the process" of selecting the new headquarters location, which comes with a promise of up to 50,000 new jobs.
"I hated when people jumped over me to talk to Weld or Cellucci," Baker said about his own time working for Govs. Bill Weld and Paul Cellucci as a cabinet level secretary.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Amazon officials have toured potential sites in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia. Baker said nothing about a visit to Massachusetts.
If Massachusetts makes it to the final three or four contenders, Baker said then he could seek permission to reach out personally to Bezos "to make clear to him how interested we are."
Amazon has already announced that it plans to add 2,000 jobs in the Seaport, building on its presence in the state that already includes 3,000 employees. "Whatever happens with Amazon's second headquarters, they're going to have a pretty big footprint here no matter what," Baker said.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments