Amazon Studios has held internal discussions about reviving "The Apprentice", and Donald Trump Jr. is the name at the top of the list to take over the boardroom chair his father made famous, the Daily Mail reported, citing a Wall Street Journal account of the early-stage talks.
The conversations remain preliminary. Amazon has not formally approached the Trump family, and no host has been selected. But the fact that executives inside one of the world's largest streaming platforms are actively weighing a return of the franchise, with the president's eldest son in the lead role, says something about where the cultural wind is blowing.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the broad contours of the discussions to the Wall Street Journal:
"Since our acquisition of MGM, we have had preliminary internal discussions about what's next for 'The Apprentice' as a property."
The spokesperson also stressed that the show "is not in active development," Just The News noted, reinforcing that the project has not moved beyond the brainstorming phase.
Amazon acquired MGM, the storied film and television studio, in 2022. That purchase gave the tech giant control of the "Apprentice" intellectual property, a franchise that ran for 14 seasons on NBC with Donald Trump as host and executive producer. The show's premise was simple and effective: contestants competed for a job with Trump, and each week someone heard the line that became a national catchphrase.
The series helped propel Trump into the national spotlight long before he entered politics. Now, with the franchise sitting in Amazon's back catalog, executives led by Amazon MGM Studios head Mike Hopkins began exploring a reboot early last year, around the time President Trump was being sworn in for his second term.
By March 2025, Amazon had already released episodes of the original "Apprentice" on Prime Video, a move that signaled at least some commercial interest in the brand's staying power. The Washington Examiner reported that the reboot, if greenlit, would likely stream on Prime Video as well.
Despite the internal chatter, nobody at Amazon has reached out to Donald Trump Jr. directly. A source close to him told the New York Post:
"No one from Amazon has reached out to him about this."
The Daily Mail also reached out to both the White House and the Trump Organization for comment. Whether those inquiries yielded responses is not clear from available reporting.
Still, the logic behind the choice makes sense. Don Jr. has built his own media profile and carries a natural connection to the franchise. The Trump family's media presence has only expanded in recent years, with various members stepping into public ventures well beyond politics.
The Apprentice reboot talks do not exist in a vacuum. They fit into a wider pattern of Amazon, and its founder, Jeff Bezos, cultivating closer ties with the Trump administration and its audience.
Amazon contributed $1 million to President Trump's 2025 inauguration. Bezos, who retired as CEO in 2021 but remains executive chairman, was seen at the swearing-in ceremony and other inaugural events. On Tuesday, Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, arrived at the White House for a state dinner honoring Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Bezos made headlines by killing the Washington Post's planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, a decision that drew fury from the paper's editorial staff and cheers from conservatives who had long viewed the Post as a partisan operation masquerading as journalism.
The financial gestures have been even more direct. Around the time of Trump's second inauguration, Amazon agreed to pay $40 million to distribute the "Melania" documentary, a price nearly three times the next highest offer. First Lady Melania Trump's cut was reportedly more than 70 percent of that figure.
That deal alone raised eyebrows. Combined with the inauguration donation, the original-series release on Prime Video, and now the reboot discussions, the trajectory is unmistakable. Amazon is investing in content and relationships that align with the Trump base.
The potential Apprentice revival also fits Amazon's stated push to reach a broader audience. The company previously partnered with Wonder Project, a producer of religious content. Amazon released Wonder's "House of David" series and launched the company's faith-based streaming service last year.
For years, conservative audiences have complained, with good reason, that Hollywood and Silicon Valley treat them as an afterthought or, worse, as a demographic to mock. The streaming wars have changed the calculus. Platforms need subscribers, and tens of millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump represent an underserved market. The Trump family's expanding commercial footprint only underscores the demand.
An Apprentice reboot hosted by Don Jr. would tap directly into that audience. It would also give Amazon a marquee property with built-in brand recognition, something every streaming service craves in an era of content glut.
Plenty of questions hang over the project. No format, production timeline, or episode order has been disclosed. No production team has been named. The show has no greenlight. And the Trump family, the people whose participation would make or break the whole concept, has not been formally asked.
There is also the question of how such a show would navigate the obvious political dimensions. Donald Trump Jr. is not just a businessman; he is one of the most visible figures in Republican politics. Any network or platform attaching his name to a primetime franchise would face predictable backlash from the left, and equally predictable enthusiasm from the right. The intersection of the Trump brand and entertainment has always generated more heat than light from media critics, but it has also generated ratings.
Whether Amazon has the appetite to weather that storm for the sake of a franchise play remains to be seen. The company's recent moves suggest it might.
Meanwhile, the broader Trump family continues to occupy a unique space in American culture, part political dynasty, part media empire, part lightning rod. A revived Apprentice would sit squarely at that intersection.
For over a decade, the entertainment industry told itself it could ignore or alienate half the country and still thrive. The streaming subscriber wars have exposed that assumption as the costly fantasy it always was. Amazon's Apprentice discussions, tentative as they are, represent something larger than one reality show.
They represent a corporate giant acknowledging, with its wallet and its programming slate, that conservative Americans are customers worth courting. The younger generation of Trumps is stepping into public life on its own terms. If Amazon wants to build a franchise around that, it wouldn't be charity. It would be good business.
Funny how the market has a way of correcting what ideology refuses to.
