Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard torches Bezos, Blue Origin rocket launch
Former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ripped Jeff Bezos ahead of his successful trip to space, telling him to “do the world a favor” and “stay up there.”
Gabbard, a Democrat who represented Hawaii in the House before running for president in 2020, voiced her views ahead of the highly publicized launch in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning.
“Bezos, please stay up there. Do the world a favor,” Gabbard wrote in the first post.
“The only problem I have with Bezos’ Blue Origin space rocket ship into outer space is that it’s going to come back,” she added in the second.
The Amazon and Blue Origin founder, who is also the world’s richest man, became an astronaut Tuesday after blasting off in his New Shepard rocket at 9:12 a.m. ET from West Texas on his company’s first commercial flight.
“Best day ever!” said Bezos, who was strapped into seat No. 6, after completing his dream-come-true trip.
He was joined on the trip by his younger brother, 53-year-old Mark Bezos, whom he invited, as well as fellow crew members Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate from the Netherlands, and 82-year-old space pioneer Wally Funk.
The trip lasted just over 10 minutes and reached 66.5 miles.
Bezos, whose e-commerce and cloud computing giant has one of the most sophisticated distribution and shipping operations in the country, did not face criticism only from Gabbard.
Nearly 165,000 people signed their names to a petition calling on Bezos to stay in space after he launched himself into orbit Tuesday.
As of about 9 a.m. Tuesday, when the Amazon founder blasted off, more than 164,000 had signed a Change.org petition titled “Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth.”
The joking plea to keep Bezos from returning to Earth comes after a separate petition with the same stated goal racked up hundreds of thousands of signatures.
As of June 21, more than 20,000 people signed another petition, which is similarly titled “Petition To Not Allow Jeff Bezos Re-Entry To Earth.”
Bezos, who retired as CEO of Amazon this month, transitioning to an executive chairman role on the mammoth corporation’s board, saw his net worth expand by $75 million in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic drove the site’s sales into the stratosphere.
He has since drawn criticism for getting astronomically richer while thousands of Amazon workers live on food stamps and toil in poor conditions.
With Post wires
