After launching his successful Blue Origin flight on Tuesday morning, you’d think Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be the talk of social media for making it to the edge of space on the heels of Richard Branson, and that’s happening to a degree. However, people have been actively highlighting that his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has been donating literally billions to charity while Bezos has been financing what even he has admitted is a “joyride for the wealthy.”
It also didn’t help that following Blue Origin’s mission, Bezos made some apparently tone deaf references to Amazon employees, who have attempted to unionize amid allegedly unsafe and grueling work conditions to power the pervasive online shopping empire.
“I wanna thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this,” Bezos announced after the extremely expensive launch. Oof.
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
Of course, it should be noted that the praise for Scott was already pouring in before Bezos basically thanked the little people for footing the bill for his 11 minute space ride, but his remarks only made Scott’s philanthropy look even notable.
https://twitter.com/robhoadley/status/1417470759442726919
Jeff Bezos spent $5.5 billion and more than twenty years so that he can briefly travel to space.
MacKenzie Scott gave away $8 billion in less than a year to change other people’s lives forever.
— gettingsome (@gettingsome) July 20, 2021
https://twitter.com/gnomeloaf/status/1417483291498885120
Richard Branson AND Jeff Bezos getting dragged on the TL for wasting billions going to space while Mackenzie Scott trending #1 for donating billions to good cause. 🙌🏾🙌🏾
Dear billionaires: in a world full of Bransons and Bezos be a Mackenzie Scott!! pic.twitter.com/CpKs7oGVDq
— La Verdad 🇨🇷🇺🇸 (@sotrusince79) July 20, 2021
https://twitter.com/hel_pul/status/1417478374860144648
Mackenzie Scott donating her money to HBCUs while her ex cosplays being an astronaut definitively proves that girls go to college to get more knowledge and boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. pic.twitter.com/seuMyjOk54
— Rohita Kadambi (@RohitaKadambi) July 19, 2021
While the vast majority of the tweets about Scott focused on the persistent concerns that Bezos and Branson’s space race is a use of resources that could be used to fix actual problems on Earth like the ongoing pandemic, global warming, systemic inequality, and a laundry list of issues, there were also some jabs about the joy of watching your ex get strapped to a rocket and blasted into space. That had to feel good.
https://twitter.com/HilaryMatfess/status/1417516284468727811
https://twitter.com/AubryAndrews/status/1417472978791682048
https://twitter.com/photochrist/status/1417463283834044423