[elliekelly]

It only needs to be “something of value”... often money, but I think most reasonable people can see the potential value of the requested statement from Jeff Bezos.

Now if AMI wanted you or I to say those statements I’m not sure how valuable they’d be.

[slavik81]

To elaborate, "something of value" is the language from the federal law. Under Washington state law, blackmail explicitly includes demands for services.

I would think that the demand for a public statement would qualify, however, I'm not a lawyer, and this case is unusual enough that I would not be confident in my personal interpretation of the law.