Pulitzer-winning cartoonist quits as Washington Post rejects sketch showing Bezos, Zuckerberg bowing to Donald Trump

Cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from The Washington Post this week after a submission was 'killed' due to her chosen topic. The award-winning artist said her rejected drawing had poked fun at at several billionaires including Jeff Bezos — the owner of Washington Post.

“I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations — and some differences — about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now,” she wrote in a Substack post.

The group featured in the cartoon also included Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and Mickey Mouse repping the Walt Disney Company and ABC News.

Several executives — including Bezos — have been spotted at the Mar-a-Lago club in recent weeks. Telnaes accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations.

Telnaes insisted that the incident set a 'dangerous' precedent and stressed the need to nurture ‘free press in a democracy’. The controversial cartoon had featured several tech and media barons supplicating before US-President elect Donald Trump ahead of his term in office.

“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 reiterated.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement on Saturday accusing the Post of “political cowardice" and asking other cartoonists to post Telnaes' sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn in a show of solidarity.

(With inputs from agencies)