The U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Wednesday denied a petition from Microsoft and the Department of Defense to throw out claims made by AWS that former President Donald Trump interfered in the decision to award the JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft in 2019.
The decision, which was entered under seal in the court docket but confirmed by an AWS representative, will allow AWS to argue that Trump's public statements about the JEDI contract improperly influenced the decision to give Microsoft a ten-year, $10 billion contract to remake the military's enterprise tech environment.
During his term, Trump made no secret of his disdain for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in several public appearances and reportedly ordered former Defense Secretary James Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of the contract.