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Wikipedia says this: Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false, and often damaging, information about a person, to the public, family members, or associates unless certain demands are met.

It seems its considered blackmail but in the strictly legal sense I'm not sure. There's probably a law to cover that though, extortion?

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.

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.

Generally, yes, but you might catch a charge for something else. If they're not asking for money, what they're asking for has to be illegal.

Blackmail for Theft: Conspiracy to commit Theft.

Blackmail for Fraud: Conspiracy to commit Fraud.

Yes, very much so.