Spencer Soper, Naomi Nix, Ben Brody and Bill Allison:

It capped a year of criticism from Trump about Amazon’s market power, impact on jobs and ties to the Washington Post, which Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos owns. While that Twitter barrage grabbed headlines, behind the scenes, the e-commerce giant was furiously expanding lobbying efforts that have quickly made it one of the most-influential companies in Washington, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

In the past five years, Amazon increased lobbying spending by more than 400 percent, a rate of change that far exceeds rivals’. It lobbied more government agencies than any other tech company, pressed its case on as many issues as Google, and outspent everyone in the industry except for the search giant, the data show.

“They quietly went from Chihuahua to Great Dane in just a few years,” said Bruce Mehlman, a former top technology policy official under President George W. Bush.