Just a few hours after Jeff Bezos took a ride on a giant, phallic-shaped rocket so he could spend just a few minutes above Earth’s atmosphere, the former Amazon CEO held a press conference thanking his employees and the millions of Amazon customers who made his joyride into space possible.
Jeff Bezos: "I wanna thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this." pic.twitter.com/HTLORzbfnY
— The Recount (@therecount) July 20, 2021
And you know what? That just didn’t sit well with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The New York representative and progressive Democrat has held Bezos’ feet to the fire on more the one occasion, calling his company out for the reported treatment of its employees and the many tax cuts it receives, so it should come as no surprise that she tweeted what we were all thinking when it came to the billionaire space race that ramped up today. After Bezos sincerely thanked Amazon employees for “pay[ing] for this” when talking about his suborbital trip to a gathering of capitalist groupies — a comment that earned laughs from the audience — AOC took to social media to explain why this whole billionaire space competition feels tone deaf.
Yes, Amazon workers did pay for this – with lower wages, union busting, a frenzied and inhumane workplace, and delivery drivers not having health insurance during a pandemic.
And Amazon customers are paying for it with Amazon abusing their market power to hurt small business. https://t.co/7qMgpe8u0M
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 20, 2021
She’s of course referring to the horror stories that have surfaced detailing the working conditions of Amazon employees. That includes tales of delivery drivers having to pee in bottles to meet their deadlines and the alleged harassment that employees have faced while trying to unionize. However, if Bezos really wanted to thank the people that got him to space, he should’ve given the lawmakers and government officials who oppose taxing the rich a shoutout. You can’t reach for the stars without hefty tax breaks that gets you out of paying millions of dollars to the government every year, after all.