On July 20, 2021, Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, fulfilled his dream of space flight. Bezos, along with 3 other passengers including his brother Mark Bezos, a Dutch teenager named Oliver Daemen, and aviation pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk, who is 82 years old, enjoyed 11 minutes of flight.
The flight took off from Van Horn County, Texas, and it departed on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The automated capsule the four passengers were in was named The New Shepard in honor of Alan Shepard who was the very first American to travel to outer space.
After the capsule landed, Bezos participated in a post flight news conference in which he thanked, among other, Amazon employees and Amazon customers for paying for his flight.
Jeff Bezos at #BlueOrigin news conference: “I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all this — Thank you from the bottom of my heart very much.”pic.twitter.com/ZrWf6nuB7Y
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 20, 2021
After a video of the “thank you” circulated online, many other people started roasting him.
Would of much rather saw you help end world hunger or i dont know any major issue in the world that could of been fixed by any of you billionaires. But okay.
— Baemy (@Amy_Baemy) July 20, 2021
All that time and money just to go to space for 10 minutes
— Balthazar (@SirNistro) July 20, 2021
In case you’re wondering, the 11 minute flight cost $5.5 billion.
Look how much I am like you poors with my folksy cowboy hat
— Drew 🇺🇲🇨🇴🇨🇺 (@SouthSunRises) July 20, 2021
🤣🤣🤣🤣Right?! He just told them “Design the rocket to represent me.” So they made it look like a dick. pic.twitter.com/V8uLd5jFMS
— Cheryl Jones Head (@cjoneshead) July 20, 2021
Some people commented that they are proud that they do not shop on Amazon.
I hate Amazon. I use them a little as possible. They are too big and too powerful, and it’ll only get worse. Too many can’t figure it out and see down the road or they’re completely onboard with it.
— Sam Myers (@iamsam2407) July 20, 2021
And other tweets roasted Amazon customers, pointing out why the site is so successful.
— Billy Pugh ⛓ Cap (@billypughcap) July 20, 2021
Are you an Amazon customer? Do you think it was a waste of $5.5 billion to spend 11 minutes in a capsule? If you had the money, would you want to go to outer space? What do you think Bezos should have done with the money instead?