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AWS CEO: We would split if ordered by US government

Andy Jassy spoke about a possible spin-off for the first time

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services, has said the company would comply if the US government orders it must be spun off from Amazon.

Speaking at a conference in the US, Jassy said the company would “follow US law.” Around 13 per cent of Amazon’s total sales and roughly half of Amazon’s operating income came from AWS in the first quarter of 2019.

There has been increased speculation that the US government will heed calls for the breakup of large technology companies.

Jassy told the audience that the AWS group is growing quickly inside a parent company with more than 600,000 employees. “If people want to inspect more closely, we’ll be proud of it,” he said.

Asked what would happen if regulators demanded AWS be separated from its parent technology, Jassy said:  “I can’t speak to what the government is thinking or will do,” but that the the company would “follow US law.”

He added that customers should not want it to happen because having to do things like hold earnings calls could distract from more important tasks such as keeping cloud services functioning at a high level.