The cuts reportedly will affect mainly employees on the business side of the storied US newspaper owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The publication is among many news outlets struggling in the digital age as a growing number of online platforms compete for advertising revenues.

The layoffs, announced on Tuesday, come at a time of turmoil at the company after Mr Bezos broke with tradition and blocked an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the US presidential election in November.

In 2023, the Washington Post reported losses of $77m (£45m) and falling readership on its website. That same year, the newspaper announced it was offering workers voluntary buyouts in a bid to cut headcount by 10%.

Mr Bezos wrote an opinion piece explaining that blocking the endorsement was necessary because of growing public perception that the “media is biased.”

Still, the newspaper said 250,000 of its readers canceled their subscriptions in protest.

Since then, several high-profile journalists, including investigative reporter Josh Dawsey, who confirmed on X that he was taking a job at The Wall Street Journal, have also left the newspaper. Managing editor Matea Gold is joining Post competitor The New York Times, the Times confirmed.

The apparent conflict between Bezos and the newspaper’s top talent took a turn for the worse on Saturday when Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Ann Telnaes, said she was resigning from the Washington Post.

That came after the newspaper refused to publish a satirical cartoon that showed Mr Bezos and other tycoons kneeling before a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.Last month, Mr Bezos announced Amazon would donate $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund and make a $1m in-kind contribution. Mr Bezos also described Trump’s re-election victory as “an extraordinary political comeback” and dined with him at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Ann Telnaes, a long-time Washington Post cartoonist, created a cartoon of Mr Bezos and other tycoons kneeling before a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.

Ms Telnaes announced her resignation in a Substack post Friday: “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.”

David Shipley, the editorial page editor at the paper, said he decided not to run the cartoon in order to avoid repetition, not because it mocked the paper’s owner.

In the cartoon, Mr Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are depicted on their knees giving bags of cash to a statue of Trump.

Mickey Mouse is also depicted prostrate in the cartoon. ABC News – which is owned by Disney – last month agreed to pay $15m to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump.

“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump,” Ms Telnaes wrote in her resignation announcement.

She said the cartoon was satirising “these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations”.

Ms Telnaes said the Washington Post’s refusal to run the cartoon was a “game changer” and described it as “dangerous for a free press”.

But Mr Shipley told the BBC his decision not to publish the cartoon was because of repetition of another piece set to publish.”I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to The Post. But I must disagree with her interpretation of events,” he said in a statement. “Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force.”

He added: “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.”

Last month, Mr Bezos announced Amazon would donate $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund and make a $1m in-kind contribution.

Mr Bezos also described Trump’s re-election victory as “an extraordinary political comeback” and dined with him at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The newspaper faced a liberal backlash weeks before the November presidential election after Mr Bezos interceded to prevent the editorial board endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Mr Bezos defended the move, but the newspaper reported it lost more than 250,000 subscribers following the decision.

The Los Angeles Times, whose owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is also depicted in the now-killed cartoon, made a similar move and said the newspaper would not publish its endorsement of Harris in October.

He was seen entering Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday night on his way to dinner with the president-elect, in video posted on social media.

US media reported that Elon Musk joined the pair. Mr Musk later tweeted “it was a great conversation”.

Mr Bezos has pledged $1m (£780,000) to Trump’s inauguration fund, one of a number of donations pledged by tech bosses.

Mr Bezos has large business interests with the US government through several of his companies, including Amazon’s cloud computing division and Blue Origin, his space exploration company.

Others who have travelled to Mar-a-Lago recently include Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew and Apple’s Tim Cook.Google CEO Sundar Pichai is also scheduled to meet Trump on Thursday.

The meetings come as Trump has both threatened and praised tech companies, accusing some of censorship and threatening to crack down on some of their business practices.

Amazon will stream Trump’s 20 January inauguration on its Prime Video service, which will count as another $1m donation in-kind to his inauguration fund, according to CBS News.

Mr Zuckerberg of Meta – the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – has pledged $1m to the fund, as has OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.

Mr Musk funnelled more than $250m to election efforts backing Trump, according to public records.Trump has picked Mr Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head an effort to slash government spending. In the 2024 budget year, Mr Musk’s SpaceX has US government contracts worth $3.8bn, according to government database USASpending.gov.

Mr Bezos also has significant business with the government.

Amazon Web Services was awarded a 10-year, $10bn contract with the National Security Agency in 2021. In 2023, Nasa announced a $3.4bn contract with Blue Origin to build a lunar lander for a planned mission to the moon.

Just days before the November election, the Washington Post announced that it would not be endorsing a candidate for the first time in decades.

Mr Bezos explained the decision by saying endorsements create a perception of bias.

“Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one,” he wrote in the Post.

Mr Musk and other business leaders such as financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO Howard Lutnick – Trump’s pick for commerce secretary – have been part of Trump’s inner circle since before the election.

But other tech leaders and billionaires have had a more distant relationship.Trump was suspended from Facebook after the Capitol riot following his loss in the 2020 election, and later reinstated.

This time around, Mr Zuckerberg appears to have changed tack.

The business magnate has pledged $1m (£780,000) to Trump’s inauguration fund, one of a number of donations pledged by tech bosses.

Mr Bezos also has large business interests with the US government through several of his companies, including Amazon’s cloud computing division and Blue Origin, his space exploration company.

Others who have travelled to Mar-a-Lago recently include Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew and Apple’s Tim Cook.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is also scheduled to meet Trump on Thursday.

The meetings come as Trump has both threatened and praised tech companies, accusing some of censorship and threatening to crack down on some of their business practices.

Amazon will stream Trump’s 20 January inauguration on its Prime Video service, which will count as another $1m donation in-kind to his inauguration fund, according to CBS News.

Mr Zuckerberg of Meta – the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – has pledged $1m to the fund, as has OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.

The tech boss closest to Trump – Tesla, SpaceX and X owner Elon Musk – funnelled more than $250m to election efforts backing Trump, according to public records.

Musk was also present at the Bezos-Trump dinner, saying later it had been a “great conversation”.

Trump has picked Mr Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head an effort to slash government spending.

In the 2024 budget year, Mr Musk’s SpaceX has US government contracts worth $3.8bn, according to government database USASpending.gov.

Mr Bezos also has significant business with the government.Amazon Web Services was awarded a 10-year, $10bn contract with the National Security Agency in 2021.

In 2023, Nasa announced a $3.4bn contract with Blue Origin to build a lunar lander for a planned mission to the moon.

Just days before the November election, the Washington Post announced that it would not be endorsing a candidate for the first time in decades.

Mr Bezos explained the decision by saying endorsements create a perception of bias.

“Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one,” he wrote in the Post.

Mr Musk and other business leaders such as financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO Howard Lutnick – Trump’s pick for commerce secretary – have been part of Trump’s inner circle since before the election.

But other tech leaders and billionaires have had a more distant relationship.

Trump was suspended from Facebook after the Capitol riot following his loss in the 2020 election, and later reinstated.

This time around, Mr Zuckerberg appears to have changed tack.