‘You guys paid for all this’: Backlash over Bezos' spaceflight comments

World's richest man thanked Amazon employees and customers for helping to finance his ambitions

Jeff Bezos sparked outrage moments after his return from space on Tuesday when he thanked Amazon’s customers and staff for helping him pay to get there.

Mr Bezos, 57, who has an estimated fortune of more than $200 billion, said: “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this.”

The comments about Amazon – a company repeatedly criticised for exploiting its workers and avoiding taxes – prompted an immediate backlash on social media, with many users complaining Mr Bezos must be tone deaf.

Elizabeth Warren, a US senator, said Mr Bezos “forgot to thank all the hard-working Americans who actually paid taxes to keep this country running while he and Amazon paid nothing”.

The non-profit investigative journalism organisation ProPublica says Mr Bezos paid no income tax in 2007 and 2011.

Robert Reich, former secretary of labour under US president Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote on Twitter that Mr Bezos has crushed unionising attempts at Amazon for decades.

“Amazon workers don’t need Bezos to thank them. They need him to stop union busting – and pay them what they deserve,” Mr Reich wrote.

Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos embraces veteran aviator Wally Funk after Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard craft capsule returned from space on Tuesday, July 20, 2021.

Jeff Bezos, Funk and and gap-year student Oliver Daemen, 18, disembark after Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard capsule returned from space.

Jeff Bezos disembarks after the flight.

New Shepard touches down on Earth.

New Shepard approaches the ground.

The capsule carrying Jeff Bezos and three crew members returns to Texas by parachute.

The booster rocket returns to the launch pad.

The rocket lifts off.

The launch viewed from far.

The rocket is launched on the world’s first unpiloted suborbital flight.

It took off from Blue Origin’s launch site, near Van Horn in western Texas, US.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is launched from its spaceport.

The rocket lift-off.

The launch pad. Blue Origin’s first crewed mission was an 11-minute flight from Texas and back. Reaching an altitude of 106 kilometres, it coincided with the 52nd anniversary of the first Moon landing.

People watch on a television screen as the rocket sits on the launch pad.

The crew members prepare for the flight.

The crew members prepare for the flight.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, rings a bell before boarding the flight.

This still image taken from video by Blue Origin shows Funk, Daemen and the Bezos brothers before they leave for the flight.

A monitor in a zone reserved for the media shows Wally Funk being interviewed.

This still image taken from video by Blue Origin shows Funk, Jeff and Mark Bezos, and Daemen as they ascend the crew tower for the flight.

This still image taken from video by Blue Origin shows, from left, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen as they travel to the launch pad.

Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, a private equity executive, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen pose in an undated photograph.

Mr Bezos stepped down as chief executive of the successful e-commerce company in July, allowing him more time for side projects including his space exploration company Blue Origin. He previously said he financed the rocket company by selling $1bn in Amazon stock each year.

After the spaceflight, Mr Bezos awarded $100 million donations through a new philanthropic initiative to US chef Jose Andres and CNN contributor Van Jones to put towards any charity or non-profit group of their choice. Mr Jones has founded several non-profit organisations, while Mr Andres’s World Central Kitchen provides meals to people displaced by natural disasters.

Nevertheless, Earl Blumenauer, a US politician who is on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, on Tuesday proposed legislation that would tax space travel for non-scientific research purposes.

“Space exploration isn’t a tax-free holiday for the wealthy,” said Mr Blumenauer, a Democrat in the state of Oregon. “Just as normal Americans pay taxes when they buy airline tickets, billionaires who fly into space to produce nothing of scientific value should do the same, and then some.”

After the successful flight, in which Mr Bezos and three other passengers blasted into space on board a Blue Origin rocket, the billionaire revealed his space tourism company had already taken $100m in bookings for coming launches.

Blue Origin plans to carry out two flights for paying customers this year, with the number of journeys expected to increase thereafter.