In 2009, Turkey’s tax ministry imposed a $2.5 billion fine for alleged tax evasion on Dogan Yayin, a media conglomerate whose newspapers and television stations were critical of the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Under financial and political pressure, the company began unloading some assets and closing others. Last month, the billionaire Aydin Dogan sold his remaining media properties, including the influential Hurriyet newspaper and CNN Turk, to a group of Erdogan loyalists.

Modern authoritarians rarely seize critical newspapers or TV stations outright. Instead, they use state power to pressure critics and reward friends. As Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors at Harvard, wrote in their recent book “How Democracies Die,” President Vladimir Putin of Russia turned the tax authorities on Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of an independent television network, NTV, which was considered bothersome. Gusinsky eventually signed NTV over to a government-controlled company. Under Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan authorities accused Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovisión, a TV station frequently critical of the government, of illegal profiteering. In 2013, Zuloaga sold Globovisión to allies of Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.

Now Donald Trump is going after Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.

The president’s latest round of anti-Amazon tweets began last Thursday, when Trump claimed, inaccurately, that Amazon pays “little or no taxes to state & local governments” and that the United States Postal Service loses money on Amazon deliveries. On Saturday, he wrote that The Washington Post should be forced to “REGISTER” as an Amazon lobbyist. On Monday, he warned that Amazon may soon have to pay more for its deliveries: “Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon. THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed.”

Trump’s antipathy has already affected Amazon’s fortunes. He threatened the company during the presidential campaign, and, as Forbes reported, Amazon’s stock plunged more than 6 percent after he won. Last Wednesday, after Axios reported that Trump was “obsessed” with Amazon, the company lost $53 billion in market value. In the wake of Trump’s tweets on Monday, Amazon’s stock fell more than 5 percent.