• Lewis's departure was effective immediately, with CFO Jeff D'Onofrio named interim CEO and publisher of the Jeff Bezos-owned paper
• More than 300 journalists lost their jobs Wednesday in cuts Lewis ordered but left executive editor Matt Murray to deliver alone on a Zoom call
• Lewis was photographed on the NFL Honors red carpet in San Francisco Thursday night — one day after eliminating the sports desk that would normally cover the event

WASHINGTON, DC (TDR) — Will Lewis stepped down Saturday as CEO and publisher of The Washington Post, ending a two-year tenure defined by newsroom turmoil, mass layoffs and the near-total erosion of the institution he was hired to save.

The departure was effective immediately. CFO Jeff D'Onofrio, who joined the Post in June 2025 after roles at Raptive, Tumblr and Google, was named acting CEO and publisher. Lewis's exit came three days after the paper laid off a third of its workforce — more than 300 journalists — in the most sweeping cuts in the publication's history.

The timing was striking. Lewis ordered the layoffs. He did not announce them. He did not join the 8:30 a.m. Zoom call Wednesday where executive editor Matt Murray delivered the news alone to a staff watching from their homes. And by Thursday evening, Lewis was in San Francisco, walking the NFL Honors red carpet — one day after eliminating the sports desk that would normally send reporters to cover the Super Bowl.

The Photo That Went Viral

Former Post reporter Nicki Jhabvala, now covering the Washington Commanders for The Athletic, posted the image of Lewis at NFL Honors on X Thursday evening.

"Will Lewis was too busy to join the call to tell his staff he's destroying the Washington Post sports department yesterday … but he did have time to walk the red carpet at NFL Honors here in San Francisco today. Amazing."

The photo amassed nearly 750,000 views in under 24 hours. Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Dawsey, a former Post journalist, responded: "The paper no longer has a sports department, but Will Lewis is in California walking the NFL red carpet?" Atlantic staff writer Shane Harris tagged Post owner Jeff Bezos directly: "Hey, @JeffBezos: Missed one in the layoffs."

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Puck News reported that Murray — who told Fox News that Lewis missed the layoff call because he had "a lot of things to tend to" — was not aware Lewis had left Washington for Super Bowl festivities and only learned about it from social media.

"It's unfathomable that Will Lewis still has a job. Not one thing he has done since he started two years ago has drawn in subscribers, in fact everything he has done has lost hundreds of thousands."

That assessment, from Puck News chief Washington correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell, was posted Thursday. By Saturday, Lewis no longer had the job.

What Was Cut

The Feb. 4 layoffs eliminated the sports desk, shut down the books section, gutted the foreign desk and metro coverage, ended the daily podcast "Post Reports" and hit nearly every other department. Among the journalists losing their jobs were Middle East correspondents, the Ukraine bureau chief, award-winning sports columnists, investigative reporters and the paper's Amazon beat reporter — a position with obvious irony given that Bezos founded the company.

The Washington Post Guild said the paper had lost about 400 people in the past three years. "Continuing to eliminate workers only stands to weaken the newspaper, drive away readers and undercut The Post's mission," the union said.

Bob Woodward, the legendary Watergate reporter who still serves as an associate editor, issued a statement saying readers "deserve more" from the institution. Former executive editor Marty Baron, who led the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage during Trump's first term, told TheWrap that "this ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."

Former Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR:

"There's no question you can produce a world-class news report with fewer people. But the how and why matter. What's the strategy? The Post occupies a singular place in American journalism. It needs visionary and independent stewardship that is equal to its journalism."

The Lewis Record

Lewis arrived at the Post in January 2024 after leading Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal — a veteran of Rupert Murdoch's media empire who told staff he would "get our swagger back." His tenure produced a different kind of track record.

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In June 2024, Lewis told an all-staff meeting that the Post had lost $177 million over two years and that not enough of the public wanted to read their reporting. He did not hold another town hall with staff after that. He launched a series of initiatives — WP Ventures, a "third newsroom" focused on creator-driven experimentation, WP Incubator for AI products — that staffers said gained no traction and were quickly abandoned.

"He's started all these initiatives and then abandoned them almost immediately. He hasn't actually proposed any ideas that have been successful. I'd love to know how much money we've spent on AI experiments that barely anyone has engaged with."

That was one of several anonymous Post staffers who spoke to the Columbia Journalism Review this week.

Lewis's relationship with the newsroom deteriorated further over his ties to the British phone-hacking scandal. While working for Murdoch's News International in 2010-2011, Lewis was accused in London courtroom proceedings of helping orchestrate a cover-up of criminal phone hacking by Murdoch tabloids — allegations that include authorizing the deletion of millions of emails while the company was under police investigation. Lewis has denied all wrongdoing. He is not a named defendant in any civil claims, nor has he been charged with any crime.

But the allegations followed him to the Post. When the paper's own reporters covered the ongoing London proceedings, Lewis clashed with then-executive editor Sally Buzbee over publishing stories that mentioned him. Buzbee's departure in June 2024 came after Lewis offered her a role she viewed as a demotion — a move that NPR reported was connected to tensions over the hacking coverage.

The Endorsement That Broke the Subscriber Base

The most public crisis under Lewis's watch came just before the 2024 presidential election, when Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris — a decision Lewis supported. The move drew fierce criticism from staff and readers alike.

More than 250,000 subscribers canceled. Woodward and fellow Watergate legend Carl Bernstein called the decision "surprising and disappointing." The subscriber loss accelerated financial pressures that were already severe, contributing directly to the conditions Lewis cited when ordering the layoffs 15 months later.

Under former editor Marty Baron, whom Bezos inherited when he bought the paper in 2013 for $250 million, the Post had grown to exceed three million paying subscribers. By 2026, that number was far below that level, according to a person at the paper with knowledge.

The Bezos Question

Lewis's exit does not resolve the larger question hanging over the Post: what does Jeff Bezos want it to be?

Bezos, whose personal wealth is estimated at $261 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, purchased the Post for $250 million in 2013 and initially described it as a civic investment. He poured money into the newsroom, which grew by about 85% at its peak. But his thinking has evolved — and his business interests have intersected more visibly with the federal government he once let the Post scrutinize aggressively.

Critics have noted that Amazon, Bezos's primary company, relies on federal contracts and regulatory decisions that make the White House relationship commercially significant. A Post staffer told the Columbia Journalism Review: "He has a large business empire that is vulnerable to White House decisions. Why not find someone who would be the steward he said he would be?"

Others have framed the question more starkly. The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last wrote this week that Lewis's hiring "made no sense" as a business decision:

"Lewis was a disgraced Brit with no experience in American media and no track record of success in digital publishing. He was a reliable hack, though: He would do whatever he was told."

Murray defended Lewis in a CNN interview, arguing that Lewis had put the Post's digital subscription business "in a far, far better place" and that "having an experimental mindset is part of what we needed." Murray has not publicly commented on Lewis's departure.

What Remains

The Post that exists after Lewis's departure is dramatically smaller than the one he inherited. Entire desks are gone. Foreign bureaus are shuttered. Award-winning reporters who covered wars, sports, books and local government in the nation's capital are filing for unemployment.

Union members posted signs in Lewis's Washington, D.C., neighborhood this week saying he was "wanted for destroying the Washington Post." Former Post editor Robert McCartney called Lewis "ethically challenged" and said he "doesn't have the guts to speak directly to the newsroom that he and Bezos are responsible for gutting."

D'Onofrio, the new acting CEO, inherits a paper in financial distress and a newsroom in mourning. He previously served as CEO of Tumblr and held leadership roles at Google, Zagat, Yahoo and Major League Baseball Advanced Media. He has no background in journalism — which, at this point, puts him in the same category as the man he's replacing.

The paper's motto remains "Democracy Dies in Darkness." This week, the people who used that motto to hold governments accountable were laid off by executives who wouldn't face them on a Zoom call.

When the institution built on the principle that powerful people must be held accountable loses a third of its staff while its leaders hide from accountability, does the slogan still apply — and if so, to whom?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from Axios' breaking report on Lewis's departure, TheWrap's reporting on the resignation and mass layoffs, Axios' coverage of the Feb. 4 layoff announcements, The Daily Beast's reporting on Lewis at NFL Honors, TheWrap's account of Woodward's and Baron's statements, NPR's investigation of the layoffs and Bezos's role, the Columbia Journalism Review's staff interviews, CNN's reporting on the restructuring and Murray's defense of Lewis, NPR's 2023 investigation of Lewis's phone-hacking ties, NPR's 2024 reporting on Lewis attempting to suppress stories, Poynter's analysis of the layoffs, Front Office Sports' coverage of the sports desk elimination, Status Media's account of Lewis and Bezos's absence from layoff announcements, and TheWrap's reporting on industry reaction to Lewis's NFL appearance.

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