The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Washington Post quit her job last week after the newspaper killed a cartoon portraying its owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, bowing before a statue of President-elect Donald Trump. Ann Telnaes, whose work has appeared in The Washington Post since 2008, shared a message on the platform Substack, describing the paper’s choice to pull her cartoon as a “game changer” and warning that its rejection by the opinion section editor had set a “dangerous” precedent “for a free press.” “In all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,” she wrote. “Until now.” Jeff Bezos speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 04, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times) In the post, Telnaes shared a draft of the controversial drawing, which not only took aim at Jeff Bezos but also featured caricatures of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Mickey Mouse, the mascot of Walt Disney Co. The cartoon depicts Bezos and the others kneeling, and Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Altman present bags of money to a towering statue of Trump while Soon-Shiong is holding out a tube of lipstick. Meanwhile, Mickey Mouse is shown groveling with face pressed to the ground, in complete submission to the statue. In a statement, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists blasted the refusal to publish the work as “craven censorship” and “political cowardice.” Telnaes has yet to clarify the message she aimed to convey through the cartoon despite its obvious implications. .@AnnTelnaes resigned after the Washington Post editorial page killed her cartoon. It’s worth a share.Big Tech executives are bending the knee to Donald Trump and it’s no surprise why: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos like paying a lower tax rate than a public school teacher. pic.twitter.com/xv6e5dJVf4— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 4, 2025 In her post on Substack, Telnaes explains, “While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon,” she wrote. “To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary.” David Shipley, The Post’s opinions editor, acknowledged his respect for Telnaes and her contributions to the paper but stated that he disagreed with her perspective on the situation. “Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force,” Shipley said in the statement. “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition.” Shipley revealed that he reached Telnaes on Friday by telephone, urging her to reconsider her resignation. He suggested they take the weekend to reflect and planned to reconnect on Monday to explore a resolution that aligned with her values. Later in the conversation, he said he encouraged Telnaes to delay her decision to step down, hoping they could find a mutually agreeable path forward. Telnaes has remained silent since resigning, declining to comment on Shipley’s attempts to clarify the situation. Meanwhile, Matt Wuerker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for Politico, called the decision to kill Telnaes’s cartoon “spineless,” according to the New York Times. He referenced iconic figures from The Post’s history, such as renowned cartoonist Herbert Block, famously known as Herblock, and former editor Ben Bradlee, asserting that they would be “spinning, kicking, and screaming in their graves” over the paper’s refusal to run the cartoon. Critics of Bezos on social media quickly placed the blame on the billionaire CEO, accusing him of personally orchestrating the removal of the cartoon from his corporate office. “Jeff Bezos never wanted this cartoon to become public. He killed it, and as a result, pulitzer prize editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit,” one person wrote in a popular thread about the matter. In the comments, many admitted confusion over the cartoon’s meaning and the identities of some of the characters, while others criticized Telnaes’ work as poorly executed. Liberal commentators on social media quickly took aim at Bezos, with one calling him a “disgrace to democracy.” Speaking out about the controversy, Jack Hopkins, host of the Jack Hopkins Show Podcast, wrote, “Jeff Bezos has a fragile ego.” ‘Has a Fragile Ego’: Jeff Bezos Under Fire for Washington Post’s ‘Spineless’ Decision to Pull Comic After Cartoonist Mocked Him for Seemingly Cowering to Donald Trump